Thatâs good advice. Did you hear about the Heritage Foundationâs new program? They know nobody reads their books, but they want to say they have. So they send âpre-readâ and marked up books to people.
Heritage Foundation To Launch Freedom To Read and Freedom Food Programs
I had a high school English teacher who required us to do this to all the new paper backs he assigned. Apparently he did some testing and found it made the books last for more read throughs. Still do it with every new paper back I buy, never found it did much with modern hardcovers.
We take operating books pretty for granted these days, so this may seem amusing; but only a few centuries ago people really struggled!
Back in the late 1970s when I was a Cub Scout, I remember similar bits of advice on opening paperbacks in the handbooks. I donât know if they really thought people needed it or if it was something copied-and-pasted from previous editions over decades.
Sounds very like the Heritage Foundation have included pre-reading Cruiskeen Lawn among their Services.
Thatâs exactly what they had us do with new textbooks. Itâs a good habit to get into.
Thank you for this! I created the idea of the Freedom to Read series and the pre-read books. I have never heard of Cruiskeen Lawn or Flann OâBrien, but it pleases me to know that someone with the same Irish heritage as me had the same idea.
His execution was very amusing. Mine was a one trick pony, but I did saddle that pony.
What amuses me is the number of people who assumed that âOf Course they would do this.â because that is just the kind of group they are.
This makes me very happy. Especially as St. Patrickâs Day coming up, thanks again for the link!
Back when I first began as a bookseller, almost forty years ago, these (and similar) slips used to show up in old books with some regularity. William Matthews, who is quoted at the foot, was one of the great fin de siècle New York bookbinders (never a bookseller, to the best of my knowledge), who bound for the likes of Pierpont Morgan and Robert Hoe. His work was exclusively done in very fine leathers, and new leather bindings can indeed be broken as he describes if not carefully opened, though it should be said that the binders of the period tended to favor a much more rigid binding structure then their modern successors. They also tended to skive the joints of their books very thin. Books bound in cloth tend to be much more forgiving, although it is no bad thing to treat any new book gently!
I always open books this way.
Once I was in a hurry, I forgot to do it, and the book exploded in thousand pieces.
My left hand was burnt and I had to go to hospital.
I was so ashamed when I had to explain that I didnât open my book properly to the doctor.
He was like âoh, Iâm so cool I graduated at Harvard, etc.â, making fun of me like I was an illiterate.
I didnât tell anyone until now.
This doesnât work well with my kindle. There was some unpleasant snapping sounds and now the screen is blank.
Whatâs a book?
You know that now you made a satirical article about it, itâs going to be a real thing, right? Itâs like saying âCandymanâ three times.
Instructions unclear. Something has gone wrong.
doesnât help much. i have a few books where i have to cut open the pages.
Youâre holding the instructions upside-down.
Youâve probably been opening bananas wrong, too.
THEY never believed that I could wreck text book bindings the same day received even though I reassured it would from use, not mis-use. Although books are on the way out it seems. Give it time.
I pre-order opened bananas for just that reason. Fruit Flyâs r estra.
