Rabbitch

OMG, I almost blogged about this. I had a book from the library, and there was actually a conversation written in. Someone didn't get a reference and wrote in their question and then the next dumbass to come along responded. I sort of couldn't blame the second person, because the first person was so dumb it was a sin to leave that stupid question unremarked upon.

I must live in a know-it-all area because mostly I see people correcting typos.
 

Amen!
 

Speaking as a librarian, THANK YOU for your post. We hates people who write in library books--just HATES them. We also hates the people who leave such interesting bookmarks--a strip of bacon here, a fried egg there (I kid you not!), bandaids (not new), and other things too horrible to mention. We hates the people who bring in WET library books and tell us "it was like that when I checked it out!" Most of our customers are wonderful people who vote for our library bonds, treat our books and media with care, and are generally very pleasant. However, there are the few, toward whom your post is directed, who need, um, correction.
Ellanie
 

I totally agree with you here. It pisses me off to have my reading interrupted by some moron who thinks I want to know their opinion of the story. I've gone so far as to make a note of the pages, and let the librarian know - hopefully they can check back the check out h istory of the book and maybe nail the idiot. Probably not, but I can always hope...
 

Amen to that! I got so mad a few months back when I started reading a really good book and found that some complete dumbass had gone through and totally obliterated all of the "bad words". If they don't like those words - don't read the book!
 

Gah! I hate this too. And it causes me physical pain when I see someone dog-earing a page. And if they do it to a book I HAVE LENT THEM... suffice to say my revenge will involve a blunt spoon.
 

I think you are being too hard on actual gravy-sucking pigs.
 

*clapping, stomping and whistling*
I agree totally
 

Oh! Oh! Can I help? Because I know exactly what you mean -- I don't *want* to be wondering what someone else was thinking when they wrote that comment, I don't want to be thinking at all -- I want to be reading!!
 

Hear Hear!! There is a man who rides my bus in the morning and sits there writing happily away in his clearly marked library books. He underlines, he writes margin notes.

I want to *whap* him upside the head, but I don't want to get arrested.

Seriously, what is the point of writing in books that you can't keep???
 

On a lighter note, please consider checking this out: http://emilytheslayer.livejournal.com/240715.html

A friend of mine is writing stories about handmade things to raise money for the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center, and there is some yarn and some knitted things up for auction as part of it.

Thanks!
 

I agree with you whole-heartedly. I can't stand to see library books written in....worse yet, a knitting pattern or recipe or photo cut out! And can nobody buy a bookmark anymore? Then how about a scrap of paper or a paperclip or something? You can even steal those things at work for crying out loud. I hate to see dog-ears in library books. Oh, I think you hit a nerve with me today!
 

Oh, I hear you. I once checked out a bio of Mary, Queen of Scots that I was enjoying immensely until the marginalia started. The vandal hated the book so much he couldn't put it down, I guess. Every other paragraph was marked with WRONG! or WHERE'S YOUR EVIDENCE. Finally I had to stop reading it.

If you'd like to borrow my bullwhip, it's under the bed.
 

And a good flogging to those gravy sucking pigs who treat library books like dirt....it sends shivers up my spine and makes me a bit woozy when I encounter stains and goobery bits and sticky eck that I cannot identify. At least I copped to the fact when my cat vomited on a book and paid for it...never mind it was a knitting book I was happy to keep, at least I know why a few pages are wrinkled and icky.....happy to hear from you dear rabbit I've missed your joys and rants. bertalou
 

They're probably American.
 

YEAY!
Yes!
I'm a total book freak and think a well loved book is a treasure. Truly, it's a heathen thing to do to write in books that don't belong to you.
 

I've reached the conclusion that these are the types of people who are so enmeshed in their own need-meeting that they really couldn't care less what the rest of us think about anything. I may be thinking about my downstairs neighbor who installed speakers on the walls and now plays his music with high bass... He's probably the same guy writing in the books, now that I think of it.

Selfish, that's what it is. My mother would kill me if I wrote in a library book.
 

I am sending you my cat-o-ninetails for your amusement and pleasure. I NEVER write in books, not even my own and I can't even conceive of any reason for doing so. Have at it girl!
 

Ravelry has stained me, because I want an agree(1) button. I work in a unversity library, and the things I find written in the fiction books are ridiculous, let alone the things written in the literary criticism books. And the excuses for why it looks like that when they bring it back to the circulation desk..... oy!
 

Besides annoying marginalia -- in INK! -- my next pet peeve is greasy crumbs. Crivens, you pig, don't eat your slop OVER the BOOK!

Now see, you've got me using capitals and exclamation points. Better not give me charge of your cat o'nine tails.
 

Well that should be against the law. Oh, wait. It is!
 

Oh, please come to Baltimore and flog the one at my library!!! I now recognize his handwriting, since he seems to read all the books I do! And yes, I KNOW it's a man.
 

i confess: i'm a gravy-sucking pig. i correct homonym errors. i consider that a lesser sin than leaving them to let others believe that, for instance,

"the girl had a pierced naval."

please don't hit me with anything nastier than a 100g skein of yarn.

ellen in indy
 

Amen, sistah. However, for some unknown reason I have not encountered this particular egregiosity ('tis so a word) in all my library reading, which is consinderable. Perhaps people are more polite/more civilized in northwestern Wisconsin? I would not necessarily have believed it, but still...
 

I recently borrowed a book from the library that some total barbarian had marked up with a highlighter pen. All over every page in the book! People like that should have mosquito bites on their hemmorhoids!

PeggySmee
 

Oh yes! If you need to take unpaid leave from work to get all the pigs properly flogged, I'll start a fund to compensate you for lost wages. What a wonderful cause!
 

I have a hard time writing in books that I DO own (like college texts). When I went back to school last summer, I forgot that I could write in the book cause it was mine. Anyone that defaces ANYTHING that does not belong to them should be drawn and quartered in a public square!! Go get 'em!!
 

Being a somewhat anal person, I can find it utterly distracting and annoying to have to read typos and poor grammar within the actual published product, BUT I would never deface public property and ruin it for everyone else. I HAVE however, marked up my own books - one especially bad one where I felt it was proof-read by squirrels. But yes, I very much dislike seeing other people's commentary in books from the library. That's why I just buy books. I can be as smug as I like with my own property!
 

I didn't do anything - but flog me if you must!

heh heh.
 

Dawn is not soon enough.

And WTF is up with doing the markings IN PEN? At least when it's in pencil, I carefully erase as I read along, happy that I can right the egregious wrongs.

I did find a page MISSING, cut OUT, of a needlecraft book once. What is WRONG with people?
 

If I find the morosoph who tore out pictures from a very expensive book of Al Hirschfeld drawings, I'll be sure to have that person lined up for the floggin' after suffering a few lashes from my whip.

It's good to see you back.
 

Once I actually found corrections and a link to an errata page, so while I do agree with you 99% of the time that one person has my gratitude. I was a new knitter and had no idea they published knitting books with mistakes(!) in them.

(also I now will write the url to errata pages on knitting library books-tho I only barely mature enough to not write for a good time google...)
 

Yes, Yes, YES! Hillary must live in Huntington Beach, because there's one of them bad word obliterating varmints here. I have a very bad word for his/her pearly ears.
I also have an under-bed item you may borrow for punishing, a genuine Chicago Police nightstick (pre-Democratic convention of 60 whatever).

Maureen
 

Yes! Yes! I will even string 'em up and flog when you've tired. ~lee
 

Dawn? I have to get up at dawn to watch the floggings? So unfair....wait a minute. You'll still be flogging by the civilized hour at which I rise (7 AM, sorta), given the numbers deserving of such, so - OK, floggings commence at dawn. Just leave some for me.
 

I object. People who write in library books deserve to beat about the head with the books. But gravy is delicious. I love sucking it. Book de-facers don't deserve gravy.

And if you say gravy and pigs in the same sentence I think of sausage gravy.

mmm...sausage gravy...
 

You forgot the selfish pigs who tear stuff out of books. Like the jerk who tore the Wimple pattern out of Lace style, left the shredded pages and everything. Not like someone else might like to look at it or even knit it, no you are too cheap to buy the book or even just break copywrite and photocopy it, you had to rip the whole pattern jerk, and I had to take the book back to the library and explain it. You should be drowned in boiling lanolin.
 

I switched to audio books so I get to b*tch about the cretins who scratch the disc or leave gravy fingerprints on them. SO annoying to get to the bits that skip and lurch, unrecognizable as words, totally ruining the story. Sad that everyone can't play well with others. Where were they in kindergarten? Bullying the littler kids and breaking the classroom toys, I'll venture to guess.
 

You have sooooo many comments on this post that all I can add is that I'd like to glue their fingers together with something that the removal of which a doctor visit is required.
 

I loved this rant! Good for you for threatening the rotten scribblers >-( I hate anything that pulls me out from a good story...