Rant: Check Books Before You Sell Them

December 13, 2017     laurathebibliophile     Rant

Hello, everyone. I would like to warn you now, if you didn’t read the title, that this post is going to be a rant. I am angry, and I am going to put my anger down here so I can hopefully let it go. Okay, then.

I was recently reading a v lovely book (review to follow in another post) and I finished it at about 4:00 am. Now, I recognize that the time when I finished the book is my own decision and my own fault and la la la. Yes, I know, but it contributed to my mindset at the time, so it’s relevant.

I read the book, and I got to the very end, only to find that the VERY LAST PAGE HAD BEEN TORN OUT.

At first, I thought that the author merely ended the book mid-sentence. I would buy that. Agatha Christie can do whatever the heck she wants. Then I looked closer and saw the truth.

The last page was gone. Not just gone, but carefully removed, in such a way that you could not tell it had been done unless you looked closely. I make it a point to never look at the end of a book before I read it, so I would never have known.

That was the angriest I have ever been about book mistreatment. I have seen books left in the rain and I have seen books drawn all over in crayon on by toddlers. This was the worst.

It was the worst not only because of the mistreatment of the book itself, but because I took it personally. This may have been in part because it was 4:00 am, but I did. I could not help but imagine the person who carefully tore out the very last page of a mystery novel and then gave it to a secondhand store for someone to buy.

This person knew full well that the ending was missing and gave it to be sold to an unsuspecting victim. It can’t have even been a prank by someone I know, because the book was boxed up until I moved at the beginning of the month.

Some stranger had ruined my day, and I would never even know who it was or what their motivation was.

I don’t even remember precisely which secondhand book shop I got this book from, so I address this to everyone in the business of reselling books:

CHECK BOOKS BEFORE YOU SELL THEM. Seriously, please do it. Admittedly, I am more petty than I would like to be, so if I remembered where I got this book, they would be off my list.

In the interest of accepting responsibility, yes, you as the reader should check books too. I do my best to look at books before I buy them to make sure they are in good shape, but I never look at the last page. The rest of this book is in fantastic shape. The last page may be in fantastic shape too, for all I know, because I DON’T HAVE IT.

Thank you for listening to my grumpiness. I hope that you never have this happen to you.

From my bookshelf to yours, Laura

 

2 responses to “Rant: Check Books Before You Sell Them

  1. Karen

    You have a right to be upset. I would have been (& actually am) extremely bothered by the fact that someone did this to a book they were passing onto others to read. There is absolutely no reason for someone to do that except to be mean. Be nice if that person read your blog and was ashamed of his/her actions. One can only hope.

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