What to Do with Problem Books?

In the past few months, several scandals have hit the book/publishing world involving revelations about the behavior of several authors. Other writers and commentators have investigated the myriad reactions of readers to these events and the various implications they have for publishing, and I do not feel like I have anything particularly useful to add to those excellent conversations. Here I would like to talk about a very specific piece of the fallout for readers when an author suddenly feels unworthy of one's attention, but if you would like to dive into the issues themselves, here are some links:

*Sherman Alexie accused of harrassment
*Book Riot Podcast discussion of harassment allegations in children's publishing (start at minute 11:30)
*Santino Hassell accused of catfishing (NSFW: language; TW: emotional abuse)
*Riptide's Statement about Hassell
*When in Romance podcast discussion of Hassell (minute 4:45-17:05)
*The Hopeless Romantic podcast discussion of Hassell and Riptide Publishing (NSFW: language; TW: sexual and emotional abuse)

Right. Now. What do I want to talk about? It's a minor consideration in the face of an ocean of feels including disgust and disappointment toward an author, empathy for victims, distrust of aspects of the publishing industry, and personal questions for readers about how to feel about beloved texts that now seem tainted. But it's a problem I've been considering now for a couple of weeks: What will I do with books I no longer wish to own because I no longer want to have anything to do with the author? 

This particular spate of revelations has not involved any authors whose work is deeply meaningful to me personally, so I have not yet had to grapple with changing feelings about a book that means a lot to me. And I think this is a very real, very important issue. Books matter. They matter because they show us ourselves when we thought we were the only one. They matter because they show us people and worlds we otherwise might never begin to understand. They matter because they help us through difficult times. So if a book that mattered, a book that got me through something, or helped me realize something about myself, turned out to have been written by someone engaging in behavior I find reprehensible, that would make me feel some kind of way. Given the apparent prevalence of such behavior in our societies and how much I read, I suspect someday I will be writing a blog post about what that feeling turns out to be. But for today, I am wondering only about the practical. I now have some books in my possession that didn't matter much to me (in many cases which I hadn't yet had a chance to read) and which I would no longer like to own. 

My recent experiences with trying to keep my bookshelves from taking over the entire house mean that I have some go-to options for ridding myself of unwanted books. There's a nice used book store in town that will buy select used books in good condition; there's another one that will take select used books for store exchange. Our library is always in need of donations. So is the Goodwill. I have friends and family and fellow book club members I sometimes pass books on to if I have no more need for them. Supposedly there are some Little Free Libraries in town where I could drop books off for others in my community to find. All of these are great destinations for books that have served their purpose, for books I'm happy to let go out into the world and be the right book for someone else even if they are no longer the right book for me. But these seem like wrong choices for books I don't want anymore because it turns out their authors have engaged in garbage behavior I can't look past. I don't donate expired food to the food bank; I don't want to donate books that feel nasty to the library.

Practically speaking, I guess, a book is just paper and glue. I could throw them away. Better yet, I could recycle them. (Some books even have a note on the copyright page indicating that they are suitable for recycling. This note always draws me up short. No one drops their book in the recycling bin after they turn the last page, surely? There are so many better ways to "recycle" most books.) Neither of these options feels exactly appropriate either. I try not to over-romanticize books and I try not to anthropomorphize them and I try not to conflate a physical book with the flesh-and-blood human who wrote it. Dropping a novel in the trash is not tossing a human out with the garbage, but darn if I still don't feel comfy thinking about doing it. 

I haven't been able to come up with a great solution to this small problem that feels right to me. (I'm sure there are other people who would (who have) literally trashed books for these sorts of reasons, and hey, you do you. Probably there are also other people who have donated such books to the library or what have you. It isn't, after all, the donator's responsibility to look out for the donatee's sensibilities when it comes to reading material. I'm not here to judge, but *I* can't do it.) So for now, the books in question are tucked away behind other books on my shelves, their spines turned in. They get to carry on existing, but I don't have to look at them. In this case, it's an example of out of sight, very much still on my mind.

Loving Picture Books as a Grown Human

Until recently, I have paid no attention whatever to children's picture books--and the last time I had looked at one with any interest was certainly sometime in my own childhood. But with the birth of my cousin's two little girls--the only children born to my generation in my family with whom I have any real contact--I started picking up picture books again, at first simply to find gifts for my baby cousins, but as time went on and they got older and graduated from board books to glossy picture books, for my own reading as well. 

In the beginning, I didn't pay all that much attention (I'll tell you what--despite my new appreciation for picture books, the baby board book is, I think, still interesting pretty much only to its primary audience), but a couple of years ago I was staying with my parents for a few weeks and found my mom's shelf of picture books she keeps around for when those cousin babies (to her, grand-niece babies, of course) come around. And I sat down with a stack of them and wiled away an hour or so. And what a delightful hour it was. Some of the books thrilled me because of their illustrations, some for the whole package, the way story and pictures worked together. And I felt I was definitely filling a hole, if a small one, in my reading life with those picture books. And not one born of nostalgia, not really--none of the books I read that afternoon were leftovers from my own childhood (though a few of those *are* kicking around). No, it was just the joy of picking up a story, and reading it in one go, and pausing after every few sentences to take in an illustration of what the sentences were saying. It was fun, and relaxing, and plain nice.

So I read picture books now. Since I have no children of my own and live too far away from my little cousins to share books with them regularly, I read whatever strikes my fancy (and I never have to read the same book over and over and over, which I gather is a hazard which comes with sharing the delight of books with young children). Mostly I take the books out of the library, sit down with a stack, and read them one after the other--just as I did that first time with the books from Mom's shelf. I love getting to read three or four or five stories right in a row and love the knowledge that if the first one doesn't wow me, I have another one on deck. I'm supporting my library in ways I wasn't before. I'm reading stories I never would have otherwise. I'm choosing books from a variety of lists of "bests," including bests from many communities and cultures I might otherwise not read much from. I feel like I'm winning all around.

The last time I picked up a stack of picture books at the library, several members of my book club were with me. To a one, they expressed confusion at my choice to read children's books without any children. I tried to explain, but just got weird looks. Ah, what they are missing.