VOX:

“Yesterday my colleague called me a ‘book murderer’ because I cut long books in half to make them more portable,” said the novelist and editor Alex Christofi. “Does anyone else do this? Is it just me?”

Responses were mixed.

As Natalie Morris reported on Metro, some respondents were decidedly outraged, calling Christofi’s actions “demonic” and Christofi himself a “book psychopath.” But others were torn.

Logically, they said, they could understand that it was fine for Christofi to do whatever he wanted to do with his own books. But emotionally, it was hard to look at books that had been cut in half.

We seem to project enormously intense feelings onto books, feelings that make us protective of them and furious toward those we perceive as threatening them. We think of our books as symbols of our taste, our intellect, our moral vigor. And when we hold books in such high esteem, those who treat them as objects rather than as symbols become infidels.

I was as “fauxraged” as anyone else when I first saw the “offending” tweet. But, after thinking on it for a couple of days (I know – not doing a hot take is so 20th century) and reading this piece I recognized I have an emotional attachment to books that, while perhaps warranted, isn’t necessary to foist on others who don’t feel the same way.