Those cute and lovable silverfish

I was cleaning one of my bookshelves last weekend when I was surprised to find a nest of silverfish in one of my books. Being the bookworm that I am, I exclaimed, "My babies! Don't flee! Me likey books too!"

I love those tiny critters. They can do one thing that I've unsuccessfully attempted many times before -- eat the pages from my books. These creatures can also eat the glue that binds the pages too. If I do believe in reincarnation, I wish that, for my next life, I'd be a silverfish. I just want to live the rest of my life in the company of books.

And speaking of insects, it seems that the offices of Penguin in New York has a bug infestation. Although, it's not silverfish but bedbugs! Bedbugs are nasty little bugs. Their bites are as itchy as hell.

Why we cover books in plastic

If you've been reading my blog for quite some time now, you'd notice how some of us Filipinos love to cover our books in plastic. I know a lot of people who won't even read books (whether they be new or used) unless there's snug plastic covering them. My good friend, Ajie, is one. Her OC level goes through the roof when she talks about books! Just check out this post.

I guess this practice started out when Filipino kids enter school, where they're required to have all their textbooks and notebooks wrapped in plastic. This requirement somehow makes sense. Our textbooks and notebooks come in paperback format, so the plastic made them last longer. I never had a locker back in my grade school and high school days. I had to lug around 12 of those 100-page notebooks and at least 10 textbooks in my bag every day for 10 months.

But why would this practice find its way to the books that we read for pleasure? Is it because of our tropical climate in the Philippines which can be so harsh on books? If anything, the day's heat can actually cause the plastic wrap to shrink over time, thus deforming the book's cover. Also, when you stack plastic-covered books in a bookshelf, they don't slide off as easily as books that aren't covered. So why do we go through all this trouble in the first place?

Then I discovered gauge 8 plastic.

The plastic cover usually sold in bookstores is flimsy and wrinkly. They shrink way too soon. The gauge 8 kind, however, is so thick it may sometimes be difficult to fold. It may cost three times as much as the regular kind, but, trust me, it's definitely worth it. It's not always available in bookstores and supplies stores though. And unlike the thin kind that usually comes in prepared rolls of 1 or 2 meters, you have to ask the store personnel how much plastic you want and they'd cut and roll it up for you.

I know a lot of people who wouldn't start reading their books unless their covered in those transparent plastic sheets. And I'm one of them. Somehow, a book without plastic just feels naked.

That sticky price tag

A friend recently asked my opinion about removing price tags from book covers. I have to confess that I'm a bit OC about this particular topic since I do love my books and I want them to remain pristine. First, let's ask ourselves a few questions on how important the price tags are to you as a book lover. Do you really want to be reminded of how much you've spent on to get that copy? Do you want to show your future children of the time when books were cheap? Are you just too lazy to take the price tag off? If you've answered "Yes" to any one of these questions, then don't take the price tag off.

I particularly want to keep the price tags on some of my books. I leave them on especially if (a) the books were so cheap or (b) they were too expensive. I once bought a new Jose Saramago book from National for 80 pesos and I asked the sales lady if there was a mistake. She scanned the item and it was indeed 80 pesos, so I bought it immediately. Next week, the same book was being sold for 480 pesos. This is one of the times it's good to not remove the price tag. It reminds me how someone in National screwed up.

If you do plan to take off that price tag, well then you just have to keep these things in mind. Books sold from the top three bookstores in the country -- PowerBooks, FullyBooked, and National Bookstore -- have the price tags on the back cover. This is an advantage if you botch things up. Books that have recently arrived in these bookstores have price tags that can be easily removed. Just take your time removing them, otherwise you can damage the cover. If the book has been on the shelf for quite some time, then you just have to be patient in removing it. Slowly peel off one edge a millimeter at a time. Now some price tags are actually perforated, which can make removing them even trickier. Again, in this case, patience is a virtue.

If ever you still do find some small sections of the price tag attached, you can gently scrape these pieces off with your fingernail. Don't put too much pressure though, since you're bound to make unsightly dents on the back cover if you do. Never scrape these bits and pieces off; you're bound to scratch the cover.

I also noticed that the finish of the book cover affects the way the price tag sticks to it. Price tags stuck to book covers with a matte finish are easier to remove than those on glossy book covers. Mass market paperbacks are the worst. It takes me about 10 to 15 minutes just to complete remove the price tag.

Books sold in bargain bins usually have price tags on the front cover. I just recommend not removing them at all. Since you've bought the book at a bargain bin, I'm assuming that you're not really into buying books in good condition (i.e., brand new ones). Also, I found out that the price tags used by Booksale are really sticky. When you remove them, there's a good chance of removing a small section of the front cover as well. Very, very unsightly.

A ruined front cover

Why our books are shrink-wrapped

Philippine bookstores have this practice of shrink-wrapping their books in stock. If you've been hanging out at bookstores since you've learned how to read, then I'm assuming that, like me, you have a love-hate relationship with shrink wrap. The plastic gets in the way of browsing the book's contents. Most of the time, we're just left with reading the synopsis at the back cover, which is usually filled with misleading and overused blurbs -- "Thrilling!" "The best of the year!" "This book will change your life!" "A gripping page-turner!" Such gibberish really. One of the blurbs for Jose Carlos Somoza's novel Zig Zag cried out: "It's the most intelligent thriller I've read." Intelligent is the last word to describe Zig Zag; it's overconfident, inane, and stupid.

Anyway, back to the shrink wrap. People have become more adventurous with their book browsing techniques. We've learned that removing the shrink wrap to sample the pages is perfectly acceptable. In Powerbooks, if you're still hesitant to remove the plastic, tell the book specialists that you'd like to read the book and they'll unwrap it for you. (The title "book specialist" is a stretch, but I'll discuss it in a future post.) In A Different Bookstore, the guys working there would even tell you that you can remove the plastic if you want to browse the books. The only bookstore that seems to frown upon people taking out the shrink wrap is National Bookstore. Still, you can always go to a secluded corner and quickly take out the wrap. I've done this many times and have never been caught.

If I do decide to get the book, I'd return the opened copy to the shelf and get a new one that still has shrink wrap. I like my books in pristine condition, and the shrink wrap somehow guarantees this. (Oh, the hypocrisy of it all!) Having a browser's copy was standard in our local bookstores before; now, I think it's only Bestsellers that does this. Fully Booked does not even wrap their books in plastic anymore. I think they should. You see, there are practical advantages to shrink wrapping.



Light is not friendly to books. Books placed near sunlight tend to have yellowish pages quickly. The shrink wrap somehow prevents this. Also, our bookstores are not kept airconditioned 24 hours. When they close, so does their airconditioning, locking in moisture and heat inside the store. Shrink wrapping books is a good idea if bookstores don't clean their bookshelves often. Lots of books at Fully Booked shouldn't be sold at full prices because of the hardened grime at the bottom of the books. No self-respecting booklover would ever think of getting those; we want our books to get dirty on OUR shelves.

Sadly, the shrink wrap's effectiveness ends when we get home and unwrap the books we've bought. Unless you keep your books in an airconditioned room 24/7, you know how the Philippine climate practically kills our books. It only takes a few years before pages start turning yellowish. And have you noticed how pages curl when it rains? C'est terrible!