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Cracked Spines

Cracked Spines

Last updated on: May 20, 2015 at 7:30 am by Vance Morgan

Cracked Spines 2015-05-20T07:30:19-04:00 Vance Morgan

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Although I suppose the whole point of being on Facebook is to be noticed, I always have a brief twinge of angst when someone tags me in a Facebook post. The other day one of my colleagues and friends did just that, providing a web link and commenting “Many will like this list, especially Vance Morgan.”

99 Book Nerd Problems

I’d like to say that I can’t imagine why someone would think that I would be the least bit interested in Barnes & Noble’s list of “99 Book Nerd Problems,” but my colleague was right. At least half of the items on the list were very familiar, some uncomfortably so. In no particular order . . .

Cracked spines. I was recently told in the results of the “What type of book are you?” Buzzfeed quiz that

What Kind of Book Are You?

You are a second-hand book! Sure, you’re a little tattered around the edges, and you might not smell the freshest. But that doesn’t matter: People are so blown away by your wit and wisdom that they want to share your words with everybody they know. Whether you’re handed from one friend to another or discovered on a travel lodge bookshelf, you bring the magic everywhere you go.

This is not true. Oh, I’m down with the wisdom and wit stuff, and I only need to look in the mirror in the morning to be reminded that I’m getting “a little tattered around the edges.” But I am not a second-hand book. Why? Because I do not like used books—at least books that look like they are used.

“Cracked spines” sounds like a problem shared by book geeks and chiropractors. One of the early signs, twenty-five years ago, that my attraction to the beautiful redhead whom I eventually would move in with and marry was not going to be all puppies and roses was when I observed her reading a paperback for the first time. She picked it up, opened it in the middle, and bent the pages back so far with both hands that she creased the spine. I know this is hard to believe, but some people actually read books this way. I have spent a lifetime doing everything I can to make sure that my books look just as new on the exterior when I’m done with them as when I started—but not Jeanne. This is why over the past two and a half decades I have, more often than not, spent the extra money on hardback editions of books. A sturdier spine, along with dust jackets that cover a multitude of sins, has largely solved a problem that could have been a deal breaker. And they look impressive on our bookshelves.

Last summer a colleague in Publications on campus contacted me wanting to borrow some books. The summer edition of the quarterly alumni magazine was to contain various articles about the rejuvenated version of the Development of Western Civilization program that I direct; we are just concluding our first full academic year in the new DWC. Vicki-Ann mentioned several typical texts from the program—The Aeneid, The Bible, Canterbury Tales, The Divine Comedy and others—wondering “do you have a copy of any of these that we could borrow for a few days? We’d like to take a picture for the magazine of some of the texts used in the program.” “I have at least five versions of each of them,” I replied. “Knock yourself out.” In short order a student assistant materialized at my office to pick the books up. Later in the day Vicki-Ann sent me an email: “Do you have copies of any of these books that look like they have been used?” “No.” I can’t help it if my frequently read texts are indistinguishable on the outside from books sold back at the end of the year by students who never opened them. That’s just the way that I am.

Hand-wringing articles that claim nobody reads anymore. Just the other day a headline shouted from my computer screen that TWENTY-NINE PERCENT OF AMERICANS DID NOT READ A SINGLE BOOK LAST YEAR! Really? I find that about as hard to believe as I would find a headline screaming TWENTY-NINE PERCENT OF AMERICANS DID NOT GO TO THE BATHROOM LAST YEAR! hard to believe. But then I read comments on various articles and posts on-line, find out about the guy who failed to win thousands of dollars on Wheel of Fortune because he could not correctly pronounce the word “Achilles” when it was fully spelled out in front of him on the ‘big board,” and my disbelief begins to dissipate. Who are these people? Everybody I know not only reads, but most of them are book geeks. Of course that is not surprising, given what I do for a living and who I spend my days with. Nobody I know doesn’t read. But wait . . .

**“I’m really not much of a reader”—**Caleb Morgan, oldest son of book geek Vance Morgan.

This is a shocking development. My youngest son, Justin, has his face in a book almost as often as I do. Jeanne, who was not a book geek when we met twenty-five years ago, became an honorary book geek many years ago just from breathing the same air as I breathe for long enough. But Caleb is not a reader. How did this happen? Lest you think I was a complete and total failure as a parent, Caleb is successful, happily married, has an extraordinarily full life, jets back and forth with his wife Alisha to Germany three or four times per year, sends out dozens of texts and emails per day, runs his own tattoo school, and falls asleep sprawled in front of the TV in the evening on the rare occasions when he’s actually home in the evening. How on earth does he find the time to do all of this? I know, I know—he’s “really not much of a reader” and spends the millions of hours I spend buried in a book doing something else. Books shelf Shut up.

I have a number of other book geek problems that will be the focus of future posts. But at least one of the problems identified in the B & N article is not one that I struggle with.

Family members who don’t respect my shelving protocol. There aren’t any. They know better.

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Development of Western Civilization

Development of Western Civilization

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Providence College

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