I saw this week's "Listful Mondays" at It's All About Books; it originated with Julie at A Small Accomplishment. I kept nodding my head at so many of their bookish pet peeves, decided I had to make a list of my own! I can't remember if I've done a meme like this before.... well, here are ten things that bug me about books:
1. Cover art that doesn't match the story, or has inaccurate details
2. Highlighted passages- underlining and marginalia just annoy me, but yellow highlighter is wrong!
3. Pages stuck together with gum- yuck! and you can never get it apart, either
4. Book plates, labels or stickers that cover part of a map or illustration on the endpapers
5. The first chapter (or more) just rehashing the last book in a series
6. Cigar odor- or anything else really stinky
7. Missing pages- especially at the end! Augh!
8. Loaning it to someone who breaks the spine
9. Trying to read a series in order but one book is always missing from the library
10. Books used for construction- okay, really, until they get left on the floor and stepped on
What are your book pet peeves?
If I found a book that had gum stuck in it, I think I'd toss it out.
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly what I did. And I hardly ever throw a book in the trash!
ReplyDeleteAh, thanks for joining our list making! Missing pages is a really awful one. HATE it when that happens!
ReplyDeleteMy older sister always used to break my book's spines! It was terrible! Another one of my bookish pet peeves is when people bend the front cover and all the front pages backwards while they're reading. I can hardly even look at a book being read that way!
ReplyDeleteGum in a book is just disgusting. Oh, and missing pages just suck. I can't really think of any other pet peeves - I can even live with a stinky book.
ReplyDeleteI especially hate missing pages in a new book! A used one at least has an excuse...
ReplyDeleteGum. Yuck. I've yet to meet a book with gum in it. But other unidentified darkish smears or blobs tend to gross me out.
I remembered the construction pic from before and think it's awesome...
Gum stuck in a book. How gross and disgusting!!!
ReplyDeleteI don't like borrowing books because I usually break the spine (ducks flying objects). Frankly, there are some books you just can't read comfortably (and I don't like reading in discomfort) without breaking it, so I guess my pet peeve is when the printers prints the text way too far towards the inner side of the page. I'd rather have less margin on the outside and more on the inside.
ReplyDeleteGum in books? Really? Eeewwww!
Inaccurate cover art is like hearing music played in the wrong key. I really hated it that my copy of The Call of the Wild pictured Buck looking like a St. Bernard.
ReplyDeleteSuey- Once I bought an out-of-print edition of a book I really was enjoying reading, and when I got to the end, the last four pages were missing! This wasn't a book I could find at the library, either. (Lucikly the bookstore refunded me, but they didn't have another copy of that book. I still don't know quite how it ended).
ReplyDeleteJenny- I really don't like to see books wrapped around themselves, either. Ouch!
Carolsnotebook- I can live with mild stink, but strong cigar odor makes my head hurt.
Janet- Yeah, used ones I'm not too surprised. Mysterious crusty or sticky stains are icky, too.
Dana- I so agree!
BlackSheep- You know, I have found it difficult to read new paperbacks sometimes when the text runs into the margin. I always end up wedging my tumb in there to pry the gutter wider, but it would still pain me to crack the spine. Just makes the book fall apart faster, methinks.
Bybee- I've seen covers of that book with Buck as a St Bernard! I think it's because he's described as being half St. Bernard, half shepherd. That cross would probably not look like a St. Bernard at all. I think it just shows laziness on the part of whoever gave a description to the artist- they weren't paying attention to the basic description of the main character!
I so agree about the yellow highlighter... I bought one in a charity shop like that (I hadn't spotted the marking) and just couldn't read it, had to give it back to the shop.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, #4 and 9 annoy me too. And another thing - squashed biscuit crumbs stuck to a page. Yuck yuck yuck.
Gum in a book is just, well, ick!
ReplyDeleteI remember once reading a book that had several missing pages. Fortunately the store let me exchange it for a complete copy (I'd kept my receipt).
As for spine-breaking - it's never my intention to do it, but sometimes it happens. :-(
Library Book PetPeves
ReplyDelete- When something (or someone) has eaten part of the book.
- When someone has inserted comments into the margins (even more so when those comments and observations have nothing to do whatsoever with the book)
My Books
- When you go by that brand new book from the bookstore, only to have things bent because people have read it.
- Cracked spines, corners.
-People bending corners when the read it
-People not returning books I've lent out (I lent out a book to friends in 04 or 05. Still waiting, and they are now offended, because I kind of have been getting nasty about them returning it)
- Not having enough book shelves or time to read all the books I want, or to fit them all.
I took a book out of the library that smelled so strongly of cigarette smoke that I couldn't read it up in bed. I didn't want that smell to get on my sheets. It was awful! I had to wash my hands after reading it each day.
ReplyDelete