What Did/Would You Do for a Book?

employment -- isn't that low enough?

At this point, the most I would do for a book is read it. Comics have ruined my literacy!

Write it.

Um, I manipulated a friend of mine into giving me her copy of "The Good Earth" that her aunt had given her... but I can live with myself because when she gave to me, the book hadn't even been opened. How do I know? I told her I loved what her aunt had written to her in it and she said she hadn't bothered to open up the book. She had "just tossed it on the living coffee table!"

We've ceased being friends for a decade now.

Ann, you have never spoken truer words.

Shoplifting?
Yes. When I was twelve I stole a couple of books from Easons, Dublin's largest bookshop, because I had no money and figured they wouldn't miss a couple. Also it was piss easy. I wouldn't do it again, though.

Stealing books from people while baby-sitting their kids?
This is how I picked up my copy of Kafka's Metamorphosis and Other Stories, although I didn't really steal it. I borrowed it and meant to give it back and then just never did. However, I promised myself that if I ever get a book published, I will acknowledge the neighbour I took this book from, because she also used to loan me Bob Dylan albums, and David Bowie albums. It was an important formative time.

I have shoplifted a couple of books and was even caught for James Joyce's Ulysses (shucks) so I had to pay for it. Wouldnt do it again.

I've accidentally stolen a library book; it was at a small school library that was NEVER attended on, so I never could get my books signed out, so I ended up just taking them with me and returning them without saying anything.
I somehow ended up with a Gore Vidal book that I forgot to return though.
Never read it either, sadly enough. I probably should go back with it, though it's sort of embarrassing, as it was quite a few years ago.

"I have shoplifted a couple of books and was even caught for James Joyce's Ulysses (shucks) so I had to pay for it. "

As punishment they made you read it.

*sigh* I must have been a teenager with a delayed moral sense - I shop-lifted books, swiped them from friends, swiped them when baby-sitting, swiped them when house-sitting. And, sadly enough, every now and then I still have a "Oh my god! I'm in the best bookstore in the world and I don't have any money so I need to select which books I'm going to attempt to make off with" dream, from which I wake feeling guilty and end-up making a financial contribution to some literacy program.

Oh, and when I moved-out from my mother's home? I kind of raided her shelves, too.

I think I need to re-evaluate my life and get to atoneing to wipe-out this karmic catastrophe.

Worst I've done is steal an old old book that I didn't want to read but just liked the look of from this absolutely lovely antique bookstore run by a very dear and friendly husband and wife team. Of course to allay my guilt I went back next week and spent $100 on books that wouldn't have been worth half that amount if they were brand-new, but still.

Also, at school years ago, in what seemed to be an abandoned classroom, I came across a massive pile of ancient 'Everyman's Library' hardbacks, all obviously well-read and well-used, some library issue and others relatively clean, all of them over fifty or sixty years old. There had to be, at a guess, about two hundred of them, and day by day, two or three books at a time, I stole the whole damn lot. They also had about a thousand old issues of The New Yorker and I got a handful of those for my dad, but mostly it was those Everyman's hardbacks. Stupidly I was only 16 or so at the time and didn't attach any real value to them and one by one they were shipped off to the secondhand bookstore, until the only ones I have left today are Francis Bacon's and Montaigne's 'Essays'.

I started a website solely for the free review copies. Every day is like Christmas.

Jessa writes: "I started a website solely for the free review copies." Oh God, you remind me of one way in which I miss book retail management. The freebies in library work are few and far between. Now that I ponder it, that may be the ONLY thing I miss about retail. That and the trade shows.

My husband, who acts in many ways as my advance man on the net, introduced me to bookslut.com last year and ILB this year. He participates and reads neither himself, just thought I would enjoy them. I think he's trying to keep me from joining a real life book group.

I have no tales of illicit acquisition of books. I do spend a big fat percentage of our income on them, as does my husband.

In high school I was an English department aide, and one day was asked to help clean out the bookroom. Boy, did I! (But feeling guilty about it, I made sure to choose ratty copies.)

Jessa - so you have the website, how do you get the publishers to send you the books?

I ask. I know of other people with websites who can't seem to get publishers to send them books, and I don't know what I'm doing differently. Except for maybe I didn't give up when they told me no at first. I mean, I was a dinkly little website, of course they would ignore my faxed requests. But I would fax Random House once a week until they finally broke and started sending books. Took almost a year, in fact.

That's interesting, in the music business it seems to be the other hand. I know people who have to spend that sort of time to get labels to STOP sending them things. Meanwhile, just about every geocities review site that has more than 5 reviews, can get tons of free stuff just by sending quick email.

I'm starting to think that I'm the person here with the least respect for books; I have very little interest in actually owning books, I just want to read them, and I don't at all understand the appeal of limited or early prints etc. Though I'm admittedly not quite comfortable with getting 100+ year old copies of books from the town library, as they seem to evaporate whenever I concentrate too hard on what's written in them; not to mention when I try to turn pages (Not necessarily by mind-power)

Incidentally, are the free books worth it? I can't help but imagine that I'd dislike getting lots of review-copies of new books, as I suspect I'd mostly get things I hate, and I'd feel I HAD to read and review them, since that's why they're sent to me. Though I'm sure it's a nice way to discover great authors that you'd miss out on otherwise.

I have about 20 reviewers working for me, so most of them are mailed out to them. It's worth it, trust me. I save a whole lot of money on books each year, and I get to read the latest installment of Y a month before it hits the stores.

Besides, I request specific copies. I mostly only get books I actually want. It's like shopping on Amazon, without paying money.

Thanks, Jessa. I've now decided that I want your life. Or to be a reviewer for you. Or just a friend that you hand your cast-offs *grin*

Failing all of that, I'll wait 'til my reviews are more coherent and I've decided exactly what I want to do, before approaching the publishers.