I’ll often be found scouring the bookshelves in charity shops in the hope of finding an overlooked gem.  Don’t often find one but, just occasionally, I’ll stumble across an old book that deserves to be rescued from its fate of sitting beside a row of dull Book Club or Reader’s Digest editions or from being unceremoniously wedged in between a stack of Edward Marston paperbacks.

However, one thing that sometimes takes the gloss off any discovery that I might make is when the charity shop has unthinkingly stuck one of their own price labels or a barcode sticker on the prize item.  It is an act of sheer vandalism.  Joe Orton could not have caused more wilful destruction.

Normally, these price stickers will be slapped onto the rear panel of a precious dust wrapper.  For some reason, charity shops seem to use the stickiest of stickers, too.  It Is never possible to remove them seamlessly; they normally take with them half the precious text or picture from the surface of the dust wrapper, leaving behind an ugly white scar of defaced paper.

There are various recognised methods to remove these sticky labels––heat sometimes works to melt the adhesive; a little gently rubbing with either water or some kind of white spirit––but, invariably, some kind of ‘ghost’ impression of the sticker will remain even after the most patient ministrations. 

I can sometimes forgive the charity shop their mindless defilement in cases where they have not known the worth of the particular book but, in the case of the last two books I found, they had even gone to the additional trouble of writing ‘first edition’ on the sticky label itself.  Why stop there?  Why not make a proper job of ruining the book?  Light up the bonfire, and start a little book-burning.  I find it so frustrating that a book, which might have survived miraculously little-scarred for sixty or seventy years, should be then treated so uncaringly during a split-second of price-gun desecration.

Charity shops: if you have to put a price on your books, write it softly in pencil on the top corner of the first page.  At least then it can be rubbed out without leaving a mark.

© Fergus Longellow

Fergus Longfellow gets all steamed up about book vandalism.