Surveys
Are you a book fetishist?
(Results of one of Mslexia’s many regular surveys, in which between 1,000 and 5,000 women writers took part.)
We seem to split into two groups when it comes to our attitudes to books. In the first group are the fetishists – the organisers, the hoarders, the obsessives – who treat books almost as sacred objects. These are in the majority among the 2,300 women writers who took part in our survey (conducted for Mslexia magazine in 2012): three out of four mark their place with a bookmark to avoid dog-earing the precious pages; 57 per cent gingerly ease their books open to avoid breaking the spine – and 20 per cent avoid lending their books in case they’re returned in a scruffy state.
‘I love the look of books,’ was a typical comment, ‘just as I love the look of LP album covers. And I am desperately afraid that paper books will cease to exist in the future. I just love to have books, the smell, the feel, the colour, the shape. E-books are an abomination.’ These are the women (69 per cent) who like to inhale the scent of a new book – in fact a few (four per cent) consider second-hand books a bit of a health risk…
Then there’s the other group, the cavalier couldn’t-care-less minority. These women leave books open face down (33 per cent), write in the margins (31 per cent), and turn the page down to mark their place (16 per cent). They’re probably the same renegades who shove their books higgledy-piggledy on their shelves (36 per cent) and fling them across the room in disgust if they turn out to be predictable, badly written or tasteless (32 per cent). One confesses: ‘I once tore a book in half down the spine so that my friend could read the first half while I was finishing the second.’ They are as different from the first group as chalk from cheese and – it would seem – the bane of their lives.
Here I must declare an interest. I am an unrepentant member of this book-abusing minority; and I live with a card-carrying member of the opposite persuasion, who becomes apoplectic if he discovers one of his tomes minus its dust-jacket or being used as a chunky coaster for a mug of tea. Oddly, he is utterly disorganised in every other sphere of his life, but where his precious books are concerned, he is gripped by an almost religious fervour and practically genuflects on entering and leaving his study.
As expected, the vast majority of women writers who took part in our survey this time are what the trade refers to as ‘heavy book buyers’ (a reference to the number of books you buy, not your avoirdupois). One in four reads at least one book a week; 62 per cent read at least one every fortnight – and three quarters have at least two ‘on the go’ at the same time. Despite the recession, three-quarters of us are buying as many books as we ever have done, or even more. Only 23 per cent have cut back their book buying, but are making up the shortfall by borrowing more from libraries (25 per cent) and friends (12 per cent).
So what are we doing with all these books? Two thirds attempt to keep them all – or as many as they can fit on to their already-groaning shelves (some add more rooms and/or shelves as needed). Not surprisingly this leads to some pretty jam-packed wall-space: 35 per cent own over 1,000 books; 48 per cent own between 200 and 1,000. And fully half claimed to have read nearly all of them. ‘I need to move to house my books. I’ve outgrown the current shelving situation,’ was one comment. ‘Action is required.’
One in six do try to get rid of their books, giving them to friends or charity shops – but that can spawn a whole new set of problems: ‘What about when you have a purge, clear out books to the charity shop, and then buy them back? Or have to apologise profusely because the tattered old paperback copy you got rid of was the actual book from school/uni and the new one you bought to replace it just isn’t the same?’
But why keep a book you’ve read? For a subset of the Obsessional Tendency (21 per cent) it was because they find it difficult to thrown anything away. Could this possibly be because this is the same 21 per cent who have previously gone to all the trouble of shelving them alphabetically by author? The data give me no way of knowing, but I can’t help feeling it must be true. Here’s a typical confession: I organise my books first by their publisher, to gauge who’s publishing what (useful as a writer). Books are arranged within this category by author, then by size and colour, so that the shelf is aesthetically pleasing. Nothing irritates me more than when authors change formats forcing a re-jig. Also, when publishers redesign their logos, I have to rearrange books and their authors to keep the different logos apart. When authors change publishers, of course, I have to rearrange my shelves, trying to link the author and their two publishers together. As all the books of each publisher have to be kept on one shelf, this might involve changing several shelves, a process that could take all afternoon…’
However, the most usual way we shelve our books is by genre (44 per cent) or in no particular order (that devil-may-care 36 per cent again). Then there’s the one per cent who organise their books according to the Dewey Decimal system so beloved of libraries. Is this because they are librarian-trained? Or because the library is where their books came from in the first place? (Seven per cent of our 2,300 sample confessed to intentionally stealing a book from a library – shame on you!)
The vast majority keep books that they’ve read in order to reread or refer to them (81 per cent) or simply because ‘they are old friends, I like to have them around me’ (80 per cent). ‘The physical presence of one’s books, all ready at a moment’s notice to be lovingly taken down, rearranged, consulted for a favourite half-remembered quote or scene, is absolutely necessary to the happiness of a bibliophile.’ Others hang on to them because they reflect an aspect of their personality (48 per cent) or because they like visitors to see that they are well read (12 per cent).
As for the reading experience itself, for many it could be a real roller-coaster. Nine out of ten women’s eyes had filled with tears while reading and 44 per cent had begun actually weeping. ‘I sobbed on the tube reading Linda Grant’s Remind Me Who I am Again about her mother suffering from Alzheimer’s,’ commented one woman. ‘Sobbing aloud – yes,’ wrote another ‘and going to the person who lent you the book (we were on holiday together) who realised where I was up to and started crying as well.’
Ninety three percent had burst out laughing; 63 per cent had become sexually aroused; 14 per cent felt faint or nauseous. One in three had actually spoken aloud to the character or author; a similar number had had nightmares after reading a book. One recalls ‘being so frightened (by a Henry James ghost story) that I ran into another room to find someone’.
And where does all this gothic and intimate activity take place? In bed was the most popular reading venue (83 per cent), followed by comfy seating at home (74 per cent) and on planes, trains and automobiles (60 per cent). But – ‘I also like to read while brushing my teeth, and sometimes read while walking’.
Which of the following have you ever done?
52% Borrowed a book and failed to return it
51% Flicked forwards to the end of a book to find out what happens
50% Purchased the same book twice by mistake
32% Finished a book, then thrown it across the room because it was so predictable, badly written or distasteful
31% Read a book twice without realising it until more than a quarter of the way through
26% Bluffed or lied about reading a book you haven’t read
21% As an adult, hidden a book you are ashamed of reading
07% Intentionally stolen a book from a library
07% Pretended you haven’t read a book that you have read
04% Intentionally stolen a book from a friend or acquaintance
03% Intentionally stolen a book from a bookshop
If you’re a woman writer and would like to take part in the next survey, mosey on over to Mslexia.
At Mslexia, we have carried out 20 surveys of women writers over the last 20 years, on topics as diverse as hormone cycles and cures for writer’s block. Over the coming months I will be posting the results of surveys dealing with the creative process here.