How to "Read" a Book

Note: I am using my own personal book collection for this assignment.

When I look at my book collection, my eye is first drawn to George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. This is likely because I have been recently reading this series, so I am used to seeing these books a lot lately.

My finger landed on a section discussing the shockingly-frightening aspects of the botfly. In the specific paragraph my finger landed on, the letter "p" appears 4 times (it's a fairly short paragraph.) I guess I can imagine the white space as a sea and the other parts as islands, though not particularly vividly. It's hard to look at the page and not see words.

The paper is slightly rough, but evenly so. There is little wear on the page. I cannot feel the ink. The cover is very smooth and glossy, and I can't feel any difference in the colors. On the edges of the cover, I can feel a little wear.

The book is a paperback book, that is made entirely of paper. It seems to be glued, and there do not seem to be any signatures. The glue seems to be flat against each end of the spine.

There is no other writing in the book. However, I don't really think I am possibly the first person to think about it, so I honestly don't really think it makes me feel any particular way.

There are no stains on the book. There are some faint fingerprints on the glossy cover, though they are mostly faded. This is likely from being handled.

The pages are a slightly brownish-yellow color, slightly warm and very dull. The insides of the cover are whiter. All the printing is in black or shades of grey.

I don't see any evidence that anyone else handled the book. The edges of the pages are smooth. I imagine anyone else who has read this book (another copy obviously, as I bought this one new) would find it funny and informative, as that is the goal of the book. I doubt that anyone else has used this book this way before.

The sound of the pages flipping is a faint, short sound, rather dull and heavier in lower frequencies with a subtler higher-end element. I can faintly feel the wind from the book, but I can't move anything (even other paper) with it, so I doubt I could win any game with it.

I can't feel anything from dropping the book on the floor (it is a fairly light book). Taking my shoes off doesn't change anything.

The book is lukewarm at first. After holding it, I can sense a very slight difference in temperature where I was holding it. I suspect I never noticed this before because it is so slight that I would have to look for it to notice.

The book smells like a book. I know that sounds obvious, but I've spent more than enough time in my life in bookstores and libraries to know the smell of books. It does smell like a relatively fresh book, though, with not much other sent from being handled by too many people.

The book is called You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News. It is a book published by Cracked.com, with informative articles presented in a humorous way. Page 1 starts the article I was on earlier, entitled "The Five Most Horrifying Bugs in the World." If I didn't know why the book was titled as it was, I would still probably correctly surmise that it is titled as such because it presents such weird, disturbing facts in an upbeat, joking manner.

I honestly don't think that my experience with the book has changed much by doing this. That's not a dig at the assignment in any way, I just don't know that I'll view this particular book or books in general vastly differently. I might notice the temperature thing again though. I never found books boring. I've been an avid reader since I was a child, which is why I was able to use my own book collection for this assignment. Again, I don't really think my opinion of books has changed much.

This assignment seemed to be very "fishbowled." It required me to select a red book, specifically, and then it went through a series of mostly very specific steps of what to do with it. I think that the point of this exercise was to experience a common object from a totally different perspective. This could lead to me thinking more outside the box with things in future projects, specifically in that I might be able to look at physical objects differently from their intended purpose.