Disaster! – Booking Through Thursday

Published on by Margaret

Today’s Booking Through Thursday’s question is:

You’ve dropped your favourite out-of-print book in the bath, ruining it completely … what do you do?

I have done this with a library book. My immediate reaction was to panic and fish the book out of the water, abandon the bath and try to dry the book. Of course, it was useless, the book had been completely submerged. I had to take it back to the library and confess what I’d done. This was not the only library book I had to take back ruined. The second was one our dog had chewed. In both cases I had to pay for replacement books.

So after the bath disaster I’ve never read in the bath again.

It’s so difficult to replace a favourite book because even if I could find a second-hand copy it wouldn’t have the same meaning for me. I lost my copy of Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses that I had loved as a child. I have bought a replacement copy, but somehow it doesn’t have the same sentimental value for me, although it is better than not having it at all.

18 thoughts on “Disaster! – Booking Through Thursday”

  1. I used to be an archivist and our facility was flooded by burst water pipes one year which is when I learned that the worst thing you can do for wet paper is to dry it too quickly – we had to freeze the damaged paper while wet (which meant doing a deal with the local frozen goods distribution warehouse in our case) and then dry thaw and dry it very slowly. I have since tried basically the same treatment with a book dropped in the bath and it works (just in case you ever take up reading in the bath again).

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      1. That’s funny! I talk about freeze drying it in my post for the question! I’m going to school for archives and I’ve worked at two, but I’ve never seen the process done, but I talked about it a tiny bit.

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  3. Margaret – I’ve gotten books wet, too, and you’re right; they’re simply not the same afterward. I had to laugh when I read what you wrote about your dog chewing a book. That happened to me once, as well. One of our dogs got hold of a book I was reading and chewed it. Of course I replaced it, but still… I thought about the old childhood excuse, “My dog chewed my homework.” I guess that works for adults as well ; ).

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  4. I totally know how you feel about dropping a LIBRARY book into water. My son knocked his library book off a shelf, and into a pail of water, and I did the same thing as you — immediately did the best I could to dry it, and then took it to the library and confessed. And, like you, I had to pay for the replacement book. BUT… since my son loved this (graphic novel) book so much, and we’d basically now paid for it anyway, I asked if we could keep it. They said, “Why not?” and let us do so. :)

    So, at least it wasn’t a complete waste.

    I felt absolutely HORRIBLE, though, about the book being “ruined”! I normally treat all library books with the utmost care & respect, and couldn’t believe we’d wrecked one! Ugh!

    ~MizB

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  7. I understand the sentimental reasons for not wanting to lose a book.

    I had one that was kept by my ex-wife that I’m still irritated about.

    It was a first edition, signed copy of a particular favorite of mine. Oh well….

    That said, I don’t read in the tub…..I don’t want to water damage the books.

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  8. When our children were small, I had a bath but no time to read in it.

    Today I have the time but only a shower … so I suppose if I brought a book it would probably be in order to destroy it. I have burnt a book once, though. When we bought our cottage, there were a few comics and one ´book´ on the shelves: some true story about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. We used it to light the fire in our woodburner.

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  9. Our first puppy chewed up one of my library books (foolishly left on the floor by the bed, by me) and I remember vividly how embarrassing it was taking it back. The good side of the incident was that it was a hardback, so it was still readable – I paid for the replacement and have the chewed copy to remind me of the dog!

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  10. My first Great Dane got upset with me for leaving him alone one day and proceeded to pull books off the bottom shelf and chew away. When I got home, he hid because he knew what trouble he was in. Some had to go in the trash but I still have several lightly chewed volumes to digest. As clumsy as I have always been, I wouldn’t dare read in the bath!

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  11. Oh god, would be even worse if it was not your book!

    I have never read in the bath and do not think I will start now.

    Found your blog through BTT

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