Slate reprints Anne Fadiman’s classic 1995 essay.
When I was eleven and my brother was thirteen, our parents took us to Europe. At the Hôtel d’Angleterre in Copenhagen, as he had done virtually every night of his literate life, Kim left a book facedown on the bedside table. The next afternoon, he returned to find the book closed, a piece of paper inserted to mark the page, and the following note, signed by the chambermaid, resting on its cover:My brother was stunned.
Courtly lovers always remove their bookmarks when the assignation is over; carnal lovers are likely to leave romanticByron loves books. Really, he does. So does my husband, an incorrigible book-splayer whose roommate once informed him, “George, if you ever break the spine of one of my books, I want you to know you might as well be breakingSo does Kim, who reports that despite his experience in Copenhagen, his bedside table currently supports three spreadeagled volumes.
Just think what courtly lovers miss by believing that the only thing they are permitted to do with books isthem! What do they use for shims, doorstops, glueing weights, and rug-flatteners? When my friend the art historian was a teenager, his cherished copy ofpracticed percussion riffs from Led Zeppelin.
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