Thoughts About Books at 2:30 in the Morning

There is something profoundly sad to me about a library book whose spine isn't broken:

Or being the first to request that a book be brought up from the depository. Maybe I think of it in Velveteen Rabbit terms - that a book has to be worn and broken in to show it's been loved. Anne Fadiman has a wonderful essay in Ex Libris about people who devour and destroy books versus the people who treat them as sacred objects. Now I don't think all books should look like my copy of Ulysses:

(and let me clarify that no act of love did that), but a book languishing, unread, is Toy Story 2, Sarah McLachlan singing in the background sort of sad to me.

Or perhaps this is the third 3 am I have seen in seven days and I'm beginning to get a little emotional about it...