Reading as a cheap hobby

Floss

MrsStepford said:

Toxic Books Warning
https://metro.co.uk/2024/08/18/warning-issued-harmful-chemicals-found-books-21445708/

I'm a bit worried by this as I have quite a lot of old books. Mrs Beeton, poetry, architecture, all sorts. Think I will just round them up and put them in the landfill. I certainly don't have specialist knowledge to be able to store them safely. Nor would I want to inflict them on a library or charity shop. 

I think you would need to handle them for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week for a while before ingesting enough to cause lasting damage. If you don't touch them, yours should be OK. If you do touch them, throughly wash your hands & read in a ventilated area.

MrsStepford

The Winterthur Museum and University of Delaware have collaborated on a database which details books containing arsenic. Emerald green is the worst offender and that can be spread by handling old books, quite easily. Red books can contain mercury and I have quite a lot of those. 

weenancyinAmerica

I won't get rid of any of my books just because a couple might contain something dangerous in the cover. Maybe before panicking we need to wait and see what books end up in that database. Maybe this is just an excuse to get people to panic and get rid of old books as a way to wipe out the knowledge in them. Sort of like getting people to burn books which if they do contain lead etc. is the worst way to get rid of them. Make sure if you are getting panicky and throw them out that your local council doesn't burn their waste because you may do yourself in that way if it is true just from air pollution. I have hundreds of books that pre-date 1923 and they are staying here. The libraries that are concerned about this are just putting some of the books in plastic bags. Besides it sounds as if they are talking about books with fancy bright colorful covers and most of mine are dull and plain.   

Floss

I guess also if books have dust covers, those covers protect the reader too.

weenancyinAmerica

We used to make dust covers out of paperbags. Or you can use wallpaper or shelf lining paper. You could probably also use wrapping paper if it was good heavy duty stuff. We had to cover our school books this way. I notice in some of the design magazines they are into this and make all of the covers match. Or use a different cover for each shelf so the book gets back to the shelf it belongs on really fast.

annieb64

We had to cover our books at school too and number the pages of exercise books.

Blackcats

Joining in a bit late but wanted to add that I loved Enid Blyton books especially The Twins at St Clare's series and Mallory Towers.  I think as a child I simply enjoyed the stories of children who lived what I thought were interesting lives.  I didn't know anything about boarding schools nor did I hanker to go to one but I did think I'd like to be called Carlotta like one of the characters 🤣. I was always delighted to get the next book in the series.  

I've just finished The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett and thought it was really good.  I think Edith Twyford bears a strong resemblance to Enid Blyton (or is it my imagination enjoying a good book?)
I would recommend the book and others by the same author.  They are all written in a different style with very intricately crafted storylines.

PipneyJane

MrsStepford said:

I had my mother's Famous Five and Malory Towers books, but haven't read any Secret Seven. We had Noddy wooden egg cups with felt hats, but I don't remember any Noddy books. 

Toxic Books Warning
https://metro.co.uk/2024/08/18/warning-issued-harmful-chemicals-found-books-21445708/

I'm a bit worried by this as I have quite a lot of old books. Mrs Beeton, poetry, architecture, all sorts. Think I will just round them up and put them in the landfill. I certainly don't have specialist knowledge to be able to store them safely. Nor would I want to inflict them on a library or charity shop. 

 
DON”T.  The old books you own are irreplaceable. 

weenancyinAmerica said:

I won't get rid of any of my books just because a couple might contain something dangerous in the cover. Maybe before panicking we need to wait and see what books end up in that database. Maybe this is just an excuse to get people to panic and get rid of old books as a way to wipe out the knowledge in them. Sort of like getting people to burn books which if they do contain lead etc. is the worst way to get rid of them. Make sure if you are getting panicky and throw them out that your local council doesn't burn their waste because you may do yourself in that way if it is true just from air pollution. I have hundreds of books that pre-date 1923 and they are staying here. The libraries that are concerned about this are just putting some of the books in plastic bags. Besides it sounds as if they are talking about books with fancy bright colorful covers and most of mine are dull and plain.   

I second this. Wash your hands before and after reading, and read in a well-ventilated place.

For the average reader, the quantities of toxins you are likely to absorb from old books is far smaller than the amount to which you are exposed to daily from traffic pollution or air fresheners*.  Just keep your books out of direct sunlight and away from steamy bathrooms, conditions which may cause dodgy chemicals to vaporise.

- Pip


* I wish I could remember the source, but I recently read that air fresheners are the biggest indoor source of air pollution in the modern home.  Spend more than a couple of days watching daytime TV and you can understand why they’ve had such an uptick in sales.  Every second advertisement…. < sigh >

PipneyJane

weenancyinAmerica said:

Pip - the book made the caretaker sound like he was very low IQ and not very smart otherwise. Upset me the first time I read it, so was glad to find they were redoing it before I would get a copy for my niece.

Ahh…. Yes, I see why you objected.

Some of my favorite books growing up were the L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables Series, especially Anne of Ingleside. 

I was always reading. When I was 5, I would climb an apricot tree in our yard and read up there. When we moved to a new house and my father built a swing with a bar for pullups, I would take out blankets and make a tent over the bar and hide in there for hours. Can't imagine living anywhere with no access to a library. I even visit the libraries in almost every town I have ever visited (probably well over 200 by now). Even did this in Switzerland when I visited there. Always one of my first stops everywhere I go, even in tourist towns like Stratford upon Avon, London (several - really like the Islington Library), York, Edinburgh, and Belfast.

My biggest regret is that, during the 8 years I worked within spitting distance of it, I never visited the London Library.  Mind you, I probably couldn’t have afforded membership at the time (although, rationally, I probably spent twice as much per month on novels, if not more).

- Pip

MrsStepford

My husband has vetoed throwing any books away. He is suggesting vinyl medical type gloves. 

I wouldn't use air fresheners as they are full of horrible chemicals and husband has COPD (diagnosed March 2023). We have an air purifier in our bedroom which works really well plus a HEPA Henry. 

Have ordered Mary Berry's Foolproof Dinners (due October) for my cousin in Vancouver and Professor Tim Spector's  new food book due October. Waiting impatiently for Damien Boyd's next book, due in January. 

When he lived in London, Robert Pattinson was a member of the London Library.

We don't have a TV. The money saved by not paying for a TV licence, pays for Amazon Prime and Kindle Unlimited, which IMO are far more useful.