In my opinion, there’s a special circle in hell for people who mark their places in books with dog-ears—folding over pages in a triangle. May these people reside in eternal flames alongside people who break the spines of the books they read; use a bookmark! Then, there are those equally cursed people who paste in their personalized bookplates or stamp their ownership with “in the library of” with their names, who I cannot forgive. On the outer rim of hellish circles are those who write in books with pens. Pencil marks I can erase, but why mark a book with a pen if you don’t intend to destroy the book?
Scottish writer Iain Banks, who also published science fiction under Iain M. Banks, published books in the UK and USA. In the UK, some of these appeared in trade paperback by Abacus. A few years ago, an influx of these books appeared in the USA. I bought some as I came across them, always hoping to find more. Many years passed with no such luck. However, recently I came across a copy of The Business. Of course, in this book, someone had written “R” next to the titles Banks’ other books. I guess this is a handy way to keep track of what they had read. If so, I thought, why then would this book end up in a used bookstore in Phoenix, Arizona? What strange circumstance would put this book there? They’d also dog-eared the book, and stored it where the sun yellowed its pages. Otherwise the book was ok, and as Banks’ books are hard to find where I lived, I bought this copy.
Three of the five Abacus books I own only list other books written by Banks. The Business, as well as The Steep Approach to Garbadale, show twelve images of covers of Banks’ books from Abacus. The titles are hard to read, so I don’t quite know the seven books in this set that I lack. Given that I’m in the USA, and these are UK editions, and Banks died a few years ago, if I find any of those seven it will be a miracle.
The previous owner of The Business, the person who dog-eared the book, made it as far as chapter three ( page 61). nothing else appears to indicate they completed the book. Did they give up and chuck the book, or pass way before they could finish it? At least they didn’t write their name in the book, but even then, it would take some effort to find their fate if the name did appear there.
Somewhere in the USA those other books must exist. If I find them, I hope they’ll be absent of writings, ownership stamps, and other jiggery-pokery.
