Book issue “spine broken”

[LoserWinner]

An acquaintance lent me a book she very much wanted me to read - a well-used paperback which was subsequently going to the neighbourhood free book exchange.

I read it and returned it.

Within hours she posted a passive-aggressive message to the group WhatsApp apologising for the broken spine. Apparently, by opening it fully to read it and leaving a crease down the spine, I have damaged it.

YABU —> it’s vandalism to bend the spine of a paperback
YANBU —> paperback spines are meant to be bent when you read

She's being ridiculous.

I read books and enjoy them. I don't deliberately damage them but I also chuck them in bags and read them in various places so they mostly have pretty damaged corners, bent spines and sometimes staining from leaking pens or general grub in my bag. Occasional coffee spills too.

It makes no odds to me how it looks when I've finished reading it nor how it might be returned if I've leant something. As long as it is returned!

She’s got too much time on her hands.
and is being so PA…

I’d buy a brand new copy for the group and message them to advise you were the disgusting reprobate that had the audacity to actually fully open 😦 the pages of the aforementioned book so you could read it.

I hate broken spines so I buy hardbacks where I can and I never lend my books out.. if the spine was immaculate then yab(slightly)u to have cracked it, knowing it had previously been read.

I would feel the same way as her which is why I stopped lending my books years ago. I would also never post a shitty passive aggressive comment on social media if I was stupid enough to lend a book to someone who broke the spine.

I think if someone lent me a book and it looked in pristine condition with no creases or cracks then I'd know not to crease or crack it myself.

She's being ridiculous. It's pretty difficult to read a paperback without creasing the spine. And as for the PA comment, that's just weird.

If it was being donated for free after anyway I don't see it makes any difference.

If she was planning to give it to someone to sell (e.g. a charity shop) or it was a first edition Shakespeare or something, that would be different.

She is unhinged.....beware!

If it was a collectors item or a first edition, then fine but if all you are doing is reading the book like a normal person i.e. cracking the spine to make it easier to read, then what is the issue. It doesn't make it illegible or unreadable.

My books are all kinds of battered. I like to look at my bookshelves and see books that have been 'out in the wild', read and enjoyed and folded, creased, kicked about and properly absorbed, rather than a colour-co ordinated design display.

Books are for reading, not looking at.

What do you mean by pages secure though? I think anti spine broken people just want the side of the book not to be ‘cracked’, I don’t think it’s to do with pages? (Could be wrong and I will admit I sometimes leave books down in a way that would lead pitchfork carriers to hunt me down!)

Have just read Demon Copperhead without cracking the spine and have moved on to The Little Friend. I don't like cracked spines on my books, so only pass them on if I don't want them back, or if I think the book is so good it absolutely needs to be read and I'm therefore prepared to sacrifice it.

I’ve got Jilly Coopers that are decades old that are so well read multiple times and pages are no where near falling out. They are properly battered too, so many creases and I don’t even think there’s a rigid spine left! They still do their job.

This is why I hate lending books. DH doesn't really realise how honoured he was that I offered to lend him a couple of books early in our relationship. It caused me a lot of anxiety over their welfare until I got them back.

Cracking a spine fills me with horror. My books look perfect after I've read them and I'd certainly treat someone else's book with care, whether they were keeping that book or not.

You’re clearly a rough handler of books or she wouldn’t say anything. A crease in a spine is understandable, a cracked spine is mistreatment.

Don’t borrow things if you can’t look after them.

Mmm really depends on what you did and what she actually means here.

If she means you opened it out so far that the spine actually cracked, that the pages are not now stuck to each other close to the spine but you can see the card or board there or even pages coming loose...

AND you actively did this by leaving the book open, face down, then piled stuff on top of it, or by opening it out and properly bending the pages backward to break the spine...

Then yeah she has a point.

However a lot of books are cheaply glue-bound with a very stiff, brittle glue and if you open the pages out a normal amount in order to read it in a normal fashion, it will crack and break...

If thats all you did, open it normally to read... then no, you're not at fault.

If she was expecting you to hold the book partially closed and squint into it to try to see the words nearer the spine edge of each page... she's a dick and should not lend books!

Spines on very thick paperbacks should crease and soften as you read them. They shouldn't crack... but many modern ones do unfortunately.

A creased spine is a sign of a good book!

Well now you know her preference, you can apologise and say you'll take it into account next time (when you either borrow or decline to borrow)
There's no need to start a bandwagon or judge who is "right", it's just a preference and you try to respect other people's preferences.
As for the way she's communicated it, well some people don't feel able to take the bull by the horns, especially if they are likely to be told their preference is wrong, but everyone's preference is valid regardless of communicating it a weird sounding way.

Fwiw in our house the rule is don't bend books beyond 180 degrees (and don't write in them), but with 2 kids and only one pair of eyes you can guess how that goes.
Good luck and happy book cracking

There was just a single crease down the spine. I never left the book face down, and it was well used when she lent it to me - corners worn etc. I handled it carefully because it was borrowed, and I couldn’t swear the spine wasn’t creased when she gave it to me.

If she's that precious about her books, she shouldn't loan them out to anyone.
I know some people get very pernickety about books. It’s not precious to expect something you’ve lent to be returned to you n the same condition as when you lent it

It sounds precious, but breaking the spine does enable the pages to come loose, so it's for a fairly good reason that one should be mindful of breaking spines.

If it was on loan, I wouldn't bend the spine.

I wouldn't lend a book out expecting it not to have a creased spine. I can't read books without doing so myself.

I don't borrow books from people like her, it is too distracting keeping the book perfectly pristine.

I don't mistreat books and hate a book with a truly broken spine but I want to open the book fully and be able to put it in my bag or whatever. Sometimes the spines get pretty creased in normal use and that's fine.

People who fold down pages, deliberately fold books back on themselves or write in them (other than an inscription/name in the front) have a special place in hell though.