I like to ruin my books. I like to mistreat them.

I like to lay them on the bed or on the table or in the grass, face down, with the pages opened to where I left off.

I like to stack my books, one or many on top of the others, lean them up against a lamp or a wall or leave them lying open on the floor.

I like to fold down the corners to hold my place or fold over a whole half page.

I like to stuff my books into a bag, a purse, a back pack, a picnic basket, or suitcase, to take them along wherever I go.

I like to carry around pens, pencils, ink, and paint when I’m reading and if I mark up my books, I don’t mind it.

I like to write in my books and underline phrases that bend my mind or my soul. I love to buy books filled with markups, edits, and marginalia to read what others found interesting, ridiculous, contentious, erroneous or important.

I like to slip pieces of paper, postcards, bookmarks or photographs, between the pages and leave them there to surprise myself or a borrower at some other time.

I like to take my books out to eat or drink in a restaurant, a coffee shop or a small cafe. I like to set my coffee cup or wine glass on an open page to hold my place while I go to the restroom.

I like to eat breakfast lunch and dinner, when I am alone, in the company of a book.

I don’t mind splashes of broth while eating ramen, sticky fingers while eating toast and jam or a spray of wine when I can’t hold back a guffaw at a funny passage I’ve read or something my dining partner might have said. Sometimes it shoots out of my nose onto my book… all the better

And I especially like the stains of tear drops on paper.

I like to throw a book occasionally… It is not beyond me to throw a book in anger at someone who I am passionately in love with.

I love the look of a well-read book. I love a book that’s been read in the bedroom and the bathroom, in the living room and in the kitchen and on the bus, and a train, on a plane, and in a boat.

I like to take the dust jacket off, and preserve it, rather than preserving the book and wrestling around with that inconvenient cover up. I love fingerprints on the covers and on the pages. I like the footprints of dogs and cats on books left lying about or left as they sleep in my lap or on the book itself.

I like the smell of a book both new and old, the ink, the adhesive, the book cloth, the end papers, the signatures and the text block and the cords and threads that bind it all together. And I like it if any or all of it is broken. I like to see string tied all around a book to hold it together when all of that has broken down.

I like the signatures of authors, I love corrections of copyright, I love library markings, I love tape and tipped in pages. I love smart ass comments about the authors, content and any other commentary an owner sees fit to make.

I like to buy books. I like to read books. I like to possess books. I like to see them on my bed, under the bed, on the tables, on the couch, on the chair, on the floor, in my car, anywhere and everywhere not excluding the bookshelves.

I like to ruin my books. I don’t want to ruin your books. It’s probably best that you do not lend me a book. But you can borrow any of mine as long as you don’t mind a book that’s been terribly mistreated. Mistreated out of love.