On reading books new and old

So, I was having a chat with a friend about a non-fiction book I am reading. And as I paraphrased some interesting bits from the book for her, she got interested into the book, and while chatting with me, searched for the book on Amazon. It turns out that the book (which, by the way, is a history of one of the most important corporate and one of the biggest brands in the world today) was available in unused/new edition at around a $20 price point, a few used books were available for around $1. This was where things got interesting.

My first response, of course, was to ask her to buy the used book, as it was not a historically significant or important book or a rare edition. It was a mass market paperback. Then she told me about the book’s description: dog-ears, class notes, margin-notes and so on. I immediately almost demanded that she buy a new, unmarked copy of the book. 

And this, of course, turned the discussion to why we buy books and how we read them. My stance (any friend agrees) is this: I would never buy a pre-read/annotated non-fiction work, while I would always prefer a read/secondhand/used fiction classic. As we reflected on this seemingly odd choice, we realized it had nothing to do with how we see the aesthetics of the books or how we receive books as physical objects, but deeper implications on how we read books.

When we read non-fiction, we are primarily dealing with facts and the author’s opinion/interpretation of them. In that case, if I don’t agree with the author, there are already two voices speaking in my head even as I try to digest the author’s theses- her and mine. Reading an annotated/highlighted/margin-noted copy of the book just throws a third voice in the mix. And this causes complications, especially in situations where both the annotator and I disagree with the author. Troubling questions arise: Is it just me disagreeing with the author and the annotator an interested party who also happens to disagree? Is his disagreeing with the author affecting my opinion? What if the author is right but I don’t see it because it is a 2:1 opinion poll? The same thing applies where the author, the annotator and I agree. How much of my agreement is due to the annotator agreeing with the author? Is my opinion being pre-shaped? Reading used/previously owned non-fiction books can cause problems.

Contrastingly, when it comes to fiction, I tend to prefer used books. There is nothing which matches the joy that I feel when I come across a particularly moving passage and find that someone else has also read it and loved it with the same fervor that I do. It is a sort of sharing that any day beats quoting my favorite lines on twitter or facebook and seeing 30 people respond to them as they identify with those lines. There is a very simple reason. The person who highlighted those lines in the book I am now reading had the context, the bigger picture of the lines, which the people who like the shared lines on social media might be lacking. That makes for a singular feeling of a deeper, richer joy of finding something discovered commonly which is simply, in my opinion, not possible with social media or ebooks.

Anyway, that is my take on reading new or old books. I would love to have your views on this subject so close to my heart.