Why I love paperbacks

Spines. I have a thing for breaking spines. Book spines, I mean.

Hard covers are too resilient. A person can have a hard cover for years and it still won’t show any wear and tear. I like books that show signs of having been read, ones with curly corners and lines in the spine that have been creased white. These aren’t books that have been neglected. They’re books that have been thoroughly and visibly loved. They’re scruffy from being stuffed in bags and coat pockets because the owners couldn’t bear to go anywhere without them. You can tell a lot about a person if you know what kind of books they love, and if someone has a bunch of paperbacks you can always see which spines have been repeatedly creased. 

So that’s why I love paperbacks: books are like friends, and you should break a book’s spine like you would break your best friend’s spine: slowly and lovingly, savoring every moment. And then you should display it in a case. The book, I mean. Not your friend’s spine. You should probably hide that in the basement until the house is empty and there’s a suitably dark and spooky night, during which you put on your black trenchcoat and white gloves and drive over to the local cemetery and bury it in a black bag in an unmarked grave. Not that I’ve ever done anything like that before. (But you can message me if you need more specific instructions).

In other news, yesterday was Heritage Day over here, and if I hadn’t heard it on the television last night I still wouldn’t have any idea why everyone stayed home. In my defense, South Africa has a LOT of public holidays.

Wikipedia says that Heritage Day is when South Africa celebrates its diverse cultural heritage and colorful Rainbow Nation and all that cutesy patriotic stuff. So basically we commemorate the fact that all our parents had sex in the same country by staying at home all day and not doing anything. Personally I wish we could commemorate more things like that.  

I study from home so public holidays really have zero significance for me, since I spend them doing what I usually do anyway.  So while I was sitting outside reading American Gods (which is totally awesome so far, by the way), my mother was doing shopping and managed to pick up two new mugs for my collection.

Superheroes and coffee. Two of my favorite things, together at last.

So I guess the lesson here is that “heritage” means free superhero merchandise, kids.