Wednesday, March 18, 2009

A special gummy hell

Old or new, the only sign I always try to rid my books of (usually with little success) is the price-sticker that malignant booksellers attach to the back. These evil white scabs rip off with difficulty, leaving leprous wounds and traces of slime to which adhere the dust and fluff of ages, making me wish for a special gummy hell to which the inventor of these stickers would be condemned.


— from The Library at Night, by Alberto Manguel.

3 comments:

Bybee said...

I'm the same! I want to see my whole book and not have even a tiny bit covered up! So I went out and bought an aresol spray can of "Glue Remover" that I use to cut the slime.

Cipriano said...

What a great quote.
I HATE stickers of all kinds.
Today I bought several plates, [like plates that you eat food from off of] and on the back?
PRICE STICKERS!
"What kind if sadistic bastard [or bastardess] puts unpeelable stickers on plates", I wondered?
But as I wondered, I ran them under 8-million degrees hot of water, and washed those labels off. I knew I could not eat off them, with sticker-residue on.
I HATE PRICE-STICKERS!

"Ms. Cornelius" said...

I totally do the same thing!

Why do we need price stickers on books? the price is listed near the ISBN code 99% of the time.

I guess it is for inventory control.