August 18th, 2012 Destroying Good Books – For Those Drained of Reason
I have a bit of an addiction to books. There, I’ve said it. I love books and I love reading them. Yes, I have a Kindle, and yes, I use it and enjoy it, but most of my collection of books still remain, cherished and sacred, on my shelves. I still surf Amazon, Half.com, thrift shops, and garage sales for books that I want to read, and more often than not, I end up adding a book or two, (or three, but please don’t tell my husband) to my collection.
Imagine the pain, then, of watching a rather boring video turn into a horror film when the instructor pulls out a knife and proceeds to instruct you on how to slice off the cover and carve out the pages of a “slightly used” book so that the spine could become part of a craft project.
This is not fiction. Lauren Conrad recently released a little video showcasing a way to destroy five to ten perfectly valuable books in order to make a storage box that looks like a stack of books. Viola! A way to impress people and make them think that you are, indeed, a collector of books and that you in fact have books on your shelves. Hopefully, your guests will not try to pick up to books to uhm … actually read or leaf through them. I wonder what the title of the video is … The Art of Destroying Good Books?
And what is the definition of “slightly used” when referring to a book? Someone read one of the pages? Received it as a gift and opened the cover? I don’t know, but I don’t think an innocent book deserves to be demolished because of it.
In Lauren’s case, the books she chose to destroy were from the beloved Lemony Snicket book series.
Author Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) had this to say when interviewed by the Huffington Post regarding the mindless destruction of his books: “It has always been my belief that people who spend too much time with my work end up as lost souls, drained of reason, who lead lives of raving emptiness and occasional lunatic violence. What a relief it is to see this documented.”
Gotta love him.
In peace and good humor,
Patti
Here are two related Huffington post articles What Not to Do With Books and Lauren Conrad Faces Huge Backlash for Destroying Books in Craft Project Video
