Sunday 17 November 2013

Bookish Pet Peeves

Bookish Musings is a feature here at Beautiful Bookish Butterflies that allows one of us to share our thoughts and opinions, talk and discuss things happening in the book and blogging community or share a personal book related issue we have. Today, Amanda is talking about some of her Bookish Pet Peeves and what bothers her most about them. I took inspiration from The Reading Hedgehogs post about her Bookish Peeves, so do go and take a look at the original post after you've read this one.

1. Bad Cover Changes: I feel as though everyone in the book community, other than my own mother, who quite frankly, wouldn't care if a book didn't have a cover, hates cover changes. For me personally, there are two types of cover changes I dislike, and they are as follows. The first type of cover change I dislike is the 'lets create new covers for a series that already has perfectly fine covers, and not only that, lets make them less attractive then the originals while we're there' type covers. Two perfect examples of this type of change is the change to the Wolves of Mercy Falls Trilogy and the Across the Universe Trilogy. Not only where the original covers much prettier, but they also matched the story and plot much better than the new designs too. The other type of cover change I dislike is the types where the change does aesthetically improve the covers, but makes them look like every other book of that genre out there. A favourite example of mine is the Delirium Trilogy, which has beautiful covers that hold no resemblance to the story or the plot whatsoever.

2. Too Tight Binding: When publishers bind books way too tightly, well, it really frustrates me. Because I prefer to buy Paperbacks, I feel this is a bigger problem for me, because it then affects how easily I can hold my book and turn the pages of said book. I will either have to struggle to read the page clearly, or accidentally bend or break the spine, which leads me to another of my pet peeves.

3. Broken Spines: This is one of the reasons I like to buy my books brand new, however, I will still buy well conditioned second hand books, but the biggest catch when buying second hand is the condition of the spine. I don't know whether this is because I like my spines perfect due to being a picky, snobby person, or whether it just makes them look much lovelier on my shelves, who knows, but it matters hugely to me.

4. Mismatched Formats: When I say mismatched formats, I mean when I either have to make the decision to have 2 paperbacks and one hardback, or to wait up to a year for one installment to be issued in paperback OR, when books are only available in e-book format. The latter seriously gets my back up, as I have a very recent favourite book, Cursed, which is only and will only ever be available in e-book format, because the author, Lizzy Ford, is an e-book author. This is only a small peeve, as I would seriously buy from the author personally, a paperback version of the book, just to have and collect the series on my shelves. Please Ms Ford, let me buy a physical copy off you, please please please.

5. Different Sized Books: A small peeve alongside the format peeve, but different sized books annoy me. I wish there was an universal paperback size, and an universal hardback size for those of us who enjoy our books all the same height on our shelves. Please, publishers, do me this wonderful favour and I will love you forever.

6. Sticker-Not-Stickers: These little buggers really get on my wick. The biggest and best example of this is on The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices book covers now that City of Bones has been released in the cinema. These stickers appear on every book, of every copy, and to be honest, I really couldn't care less if the book has been made into a motion picture film, I want to read the book, let me read the darn book. I will also include the peeve 'books that have covers relative to films based off them', this really annoys me too.

7. Dog-Eared Pre-Owned Copies: While this could be relative to the other peeve related to pre-owned books, it is also, for me, a problem all in it's own right. The second thing I check when buying pre-owned books is whether any of the pages are dog-eared or damaged, including stained, because it makes me wonder why somebody took the book for granted. Any book is a beautiful in it's own right, and when you bend or twist the pages because you can't be bothered to find something, anything, to use as a bookmark, well then, you don't deserve the book in the first place. I've used tags off clothes and clean socks before, honestly, bookmarking with items matters.

8. Black Spines: Is it just me, or does it feel like 1 out of 3 books these days have a black coloured spine? It feels that way to me. When I'm putting my books on my shelves, it seems to me that there's always a lot of black and little splats of colour inbetween, and I feel like my other, brighter, more attractive books get lost within the swamp of darkness. Please publishers, by all means, have a dark cover, but make your spines more colourful, for me?

What are your Bookish Pet Peeves? What really annoys you about books? Leave your comments below and don't forget to do your own list if you can.

2 comments:

  1. I pretty much share all of these! I'm a bit obssessive when it comes to my books. The series and covers have to match, no broken spines, no dog ears, no mutilations of any kind. They look brand new even though I reread some of them fairly often.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's pretty nice to know we're not alone on these feelings! Thank you for dropping by :)

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