Author here, I don't give a fuck, as long as the book was bought/is read. Stop fetishizing books or start fucking them. 

I do wonder why this person wouldn't just use a e-ink reader, though.

Clearly this is someone who actually reads their books. Given that they are mass market paperbacks... I have no problem with this. If I were an author I would much rather someone does this to my work and actually reads it and enjoys it to someone keeping a pristine copy unopened on their shelf forever.

There's no objective reason that this is wrong, but still, take that shit far far away from me

You should cut diagonally. If it makes a sandwich better, imagine what it can do for a novel.

"yeah, I just finished Infinite. It was pretty good, abrupt ending though. I hear Jest picks up right where it left off."

Skip jail. Straight to a firing squad of librarians.

As someone who would never, ever do this to one of my beloved collection: Go for it. Watever keeps you enjoying them. As others have said, we're not talking hundred year old first edition hardcovers here. You can still tape them up and pass them on, unlike those philistines who take one on a hike and rip out the pages they've read to use for campfire tinder.

In all honesty, in no way sarcastically, I consider this a war crime.

It's a mass-produced book, and a paperback at that. You can certainly keep any such book in good condition to archive or re-read on your own terms. But that stack of acid-paper and cheap glue is going to eventually self-destruct. Unless it's a limited production run, in danger of getting burned, autographed, is an actual collectable, or something else that makes it distinct or valuable, I say: go for it.

Source: I own a stack of these from back in the day. Despite my best efforts to store them appropriately, they're all slowly rotting away. Some things just aren't meant to last.

That's just wrong. If you're worried about portability get an e-reader, don't butcher up works of art.

I don't know, I'm a priest and I once sliced up a Bible for personal use.

Tthere was once a particular version of the Bible that I wanted, but the publisher only made a hard-backed version. I hate hard-back books (especially Bibles). So I bought it and immediately sliced the cover off and made a new one out of old church bulletins and duct tape.

Feels like a quite awful thing to do 😅

The LitBros will hunt this man for sport because of what he did to Infinite Jest.

I cut mine cross-wise to save space. There is a lot of authors who make no sense.

Get the pitchforks!

this is so wrong.

you're supposed to cut them in half so you can fit each side in the pockets of your cargo shorts.

The vast majority of books made in something like the last 50+ years are all very low quality and degrade rapidly anyway.

That psychopath needs reporting to the police.

I know a woman that cut her textbooks in college to make them less heavy to carry. She is unique.

Looking at this awakened the memories of back pain from lugging all those fucking textbooks around when I was in school. God, why were they not split into a dozen parts like this? Do kids still carry them these days?

I have never been so offended by something so harmless in the greater scheme of things.

Release the hounds!

last year I've allowed myself to do marginalia, to allow me to write notes and whatever I want on the books I read while I read. it's inherently destructive, but it changes the whole experience. reading is no longer a passive activity but a conversation with the material. and I love it.

but felt guilty about doing irreversible changes to the book. then this shit shows up.

Before seeing this i thought i was anti death penalty.