Cmon, you can tell me. What did you fucking do!?
I had a hardcover of Eragon and Goblet of Fire in my backpack. We were idiots (and children) swinging backpacks at each other “jousting” and we exploded a terrible blue body wash bottle inside my backpack (which somehow fused the pages of BOTH books together) couldn’t read either one and had both spoiled for me (by my own Mom bruh)
by Pabbam
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I took a copy of a book I loved to lend to a friend, but I accidentally dropped it in the toilet. After a #2. Don’t ask about the physics of that, because I don’t have all the answers.
This might be an unpopular opinion here but I don’t think there’s any intrinsic value to books, a good book is priceless, but a bad one is just a bunch of paper to me. I’ve thrown them away, used them to start fires, drawn on them, cut them up, lined animal cages with them…
When I was a kid we had a love bird that went feral, it moved into the back of a bookshelf and tore the shit out of all the books to build its nest back there, we just moved all the trashy pulp fiction no one liked into that shelf and let it do its thing. Sometimes a guest would pick a book out of it and the bird would lunge out of the gap and attack whoever had grabbed it.
I used to be a librarian. When we weeded books out, we then had to tear the covers off because they were laminated and the plastic and the paper went into separate recycling containers. I honestly couldn’t tell you how many books I literally ripped in two.
I was backpacking across Spain, reading Guard of Honor, by James Gould Cozzens. To make my backpack as light as possible I tore out each chapter as I read it. The book was too tattered to donate or sell, which is why I chose it for the trip, but vandalising a book each day never stopped feeling vaguely wrong.
I used to read in the bath A LOT. Didn’t have a bath tray.
Lots of books ended up taking a bath too 🤦🏻♀️ This was back when I read a lot of cheap mass market copies though so I didn’t fret TOO badly.
In 7th grade I had my book under the table, spine down while eating lunch. The pizza fell on it.
My freshmen year of high school we had an earthquake that caused my unsecured bookshelf to topple. I procrastinated cleaning it up and one day my cat pissed on a few of the books.
My Junior year of high school I went to leave work one day and it was snowing super hard. I shoved the book under my jacket, but while getting into the car it fell into the snow open, pages down.
Take your pick as to which one was the worst.
Well…. I do altered books, a form of art. I’ve carved niches in books, painted in books, ripped out pages, glued pages together, covered pages with fabric. Do I do this with new books, or books that I know someone would like to read? Nope. I usually go to a thrift store and get the books they are selling for 10 cents. Old encyclopedias and atlases that are out of date are the best.
Was so angry at the ending of Hannibal I took it to the gun range and shot it.
Burned one in a fire. On purpose. And not in a “oh I’m not going to read this again, so may as well use it as a fire starter” way but in a “I hate this book so much I need it to be ashes”. I was so so angry that it existed and that I wasted money buying it and time reading it. My best friend also bought it (we were on a cruise together and wanted to read the same book) and hated it so when we got back to her place, we lit them on fire. Wanted to throw them in the ocean but that’s illegal.
(And no I don’t remember the name of the book at all, it was quite a few years ago.)
My dad had bought a copy of Lord of the Rings (the one volume with three books in it). I cut it up into three to make it easier to read.
I really fucked with my twilight books. I ripped breaking dawn in half cause it was too big. I stapled pages together that gave me the ick and I put clear scotch tape over paragraphs I liked. Then a table leg broke, and it found itself being used to hold it up. Then our house got flooded and that was it for breaking dawn
Unintentional, but left it where my cat could barf on it.
Me and my friends burned a copy of Twilight once just to see what it felt like to burn something. We were bored teens.
All we learned was that when you set things on fire, they are on fire and that’s it. It’s not super exciting.
My evangelical mother made my siblings and me burn my older brother’s Goosebumps collection in our fireplace circa 2000. It was one of the stupidest episodes of my childhood.
Left Ender’s Game on top of my car pulled onto a highway and drove several miles before realising what happened. Went back to get it thinking it was on the floor by by house…nope, had to frogger my way on to the highway and get what was left.
Worst part is I was on my way to return it to my friend who had loaned me his FAVORITE COPY.
Edit: leap frog > frogger
Repeatedly threw a physics text book in the air to watch it crash back down to earth. The irony wasn’t intentional. I was just being a drunk idiot after a long battle with my degree.
This was decades ago now and I’d like to think I’m a bit more mature.
Now I just buy them and fail to read them.
I bought a book from a used shop just because it had a cool binding, then carved out the pages to embed a wireless charger in it for my phone and it lives on my bedside table. I know destroying a book is a sacrilege for some folks but no regrets!
Set my French teacher’s book on fire. He had written it himself and it was horrible, my class absolutely despised the guy, he was a terror. So after we graduated, we all celebrated with a bonfire and each of us threw in their copy of the book.
I borrowed an acquaintance’s brand new copy of American Gods and accidentally dropped it into a running sink and just basically destroyed it. I was very broke at the time and could not afford to replace the book. He said it was okay and I know it was not. This has been almost 10 years ago and I still feel just as bad about it now as I did then. I’m a monster.
Wrote it
I ripped up a copy of The Stranger because a 16 year old gave it to my ex (24m). He was gaslighting me about their relationship and I went crazy. Found out years later from her, that he was sleeping with her.
I have never read the book. I’ve heard it’s good, but it still puts a bad taste in my mouth.
I left Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire outside. Then it snowed. Then winter came.
It was out there for at least 3 months. I found it again when the snow melted, and a big chunk of it was gone. Like a whole corner of the book melted away. Poor book. I felt so bad.
In the late 2000s when I was an edgy teen, I got a bunch of copies of Twilight from used book stores and such and lit them on fire for youtube… Because that’s what edgy teen me thought was cool.
I got so mad at how hard The Culture Industry by Theodor Adorno was to read, i was camping sitting by the fire trying understand it and in a fit of rage threw it into the camp fire.
I love books and writing in general. So much so that I became a journalist and a publisher (now retired).
Sixty-five years ago when I was a young teenager I stole two books from a public library, one by Tolstoy and one by De Maupassant. I had to own them.
I have never told anybody about this. I am ashamed to this day.