Books I can't keep open

Books now are simply words to me. Some engross me, some not so much. All books I read straight through, at least twice. Or listen to, at least twice. Right now, I have in mind books physically in my hand.

I don't mind buying books. They are reasonably priced anymore, paper and hardback, and I can give them away to anyone who picks one up from my kitchen table and looks interested. Or, I donate them to the library. The real library; the little travelling library is having trouble getting off the ground.

And finally, considering the amount of time it takes me to absorb a book, and the short time it lingers before it is gone like a Monarch, like a sunset, like a birdsong, I tend to limit my printed books to books gleaned from The New York Times and such like sources. 

I let my fingers wander through the CleveNet library audio collection; I make the wildest selections. But the books I pay for, inexpensive as they are, are decently curated.  And occasionally, shabbily manufactured.

Reading time is mealtime. I have other things to do the rest of the time I'm awake. I can spend an hour over a meal and a book. Especially a book that lies open, with minimal book weights or page holders. I'm OK with the salt and pepper shaker holding pages down, but not my entire hand. I have food to eat, for crying out loud.

I've just finished two excellent books constructed so badly I can barely describe how sadly that impacted my opinion. One I read my obligatory twice, the other I should, but can't, just now. Both are stained with melted butter and jam, wiped away as best I could.

The Odd Woman and the City, by Vivian Gornick, probably should not have appealed to me, but did. The miles she walked, often enough with a friend, the observations she fitted into place, reminded me of the miles I drove from show to show, sometimes with Ann, and the opinions we worked through, worked out, in the front seat. 

But the paperback book is so badly made, it is a black mark on the author, as well as the bookmaker. It's like selling a poorly constructed garment, which I could not knowingly do once, let alone over and over.

The other book, Negroland; A Memoir, by Margo Jefferson, is a hardback, so difficult to use my hands ached. I read it once only, and that is a shame. I think it is an important piece of history. It was of a childhood similar to mine, by a different race. I only began to understand the whole of the author's point toward the end, and realized its importance as I let the book close and knew I would not be reading it again soon

I wonder what is the relationship of a printed book to its author.

And PS: I have given over the problem of Malware and the Trojan Horse it thinks is in one of the blogs I follow to my computer guru.