The Satisfying Art of Sharing

I once treated all books like holy material but not necessarily in a way that was only for their content. I cared deeply and painstakingly for the maintenance of the physical book. Carefully if travelling I would wrap the book in a plastic bag and ensure that in my suitcase it would be nestled between sweaters and t-shirts that would protect the paperback. At this time I thought that a pristine condition might prove to anyone who came upon the book that it had been loved and sheltered from the elements. Perhaps the shift was inevitable, with an increase of travel and a travel bag which had significantly decreased in size, that I relented to the slightly damaged condition of my books.

It first happened in Amsterdam when I refused a plastic bag for my new purchase and slipped it into my tote which had an eclectic assortment of receipts, museum tickets and the hefty film camera I insisted on bringing everywhere. Somewhere between this bookshop and riding on the front of Claire’s bicycle, my new purchase (M-Train by Patti Smith) had acquired an unattractive mark across the title. I could feel a tightness in my chest of regret and this feeling was momentarily intensified when I noticed a significant bite out of the back cover. But there was simply nothing that could be done and I noted that whatever I found between these two damaged front and back covers had not been altered. The book only became increasingly more worn as it travelled alongside me to the beach in Cassis and then became a companion to friends who borrowed it from my collection.

Where I once inspected my returned books with a careful fear I now smiled when I noticed the love that had been poured onto the pages or doggy-eared because of favoured passages. It is with this strange, distant form of nostalgia that my books have travelled to the coast of Italy or the city of Copenhagen and have been good acquaintances for cups of coffee, glasses of red wine and Spritz for my friends’ solo travel. Now when I see the book on the shelf I know that she has seen places I have yet to see for myself.

I bought a copy of my favourite book from the local English bookshop. I had already read it and the purchase was really more for the comforting myself in a new city but I leant it out to a friend who perhaps needed it and who I believe loved it just as much as I. This copies’ pages belonging for now only to the two of us and in that way I feel a new fondness for it. Perhaps this is more thought than anyone has ever given to the long-standing tradition of sharing and caring for books.

I now know for sure though that I am content and satisfied by my white book covers that have been tinted cream by the dye of my bags or stained by the slip of hand holding coffee. The pages and the words I still treasure in and adore but it is somehow more satisfying to know they have been shared and loved and stained at the hands of myself and those friends of mine.