Do you have a relationship with your books?

This just in from a friend in the TOI. Bookmark is the TOI's books page. Feel free to pass this on.

Please note, if you have questions, contact the email address at the end, not me.

We are starting a new series on Bookmark called BOOKED FOR LIFE.

It will consist of first-person accounts by book lovers on their relationship with their collections, favourite books, unfavourite books, reading habits and so on. Essentially personal, the pieces can be funny, nostalgic, righteous, ironic, and even rants are more than welcome. It could be a piece on building your collection, buying your books from pavements, Wheeler stalls, traffic signals or ordering them on the net; fanatic non-lenders who don't lend their books no matter what; lenders who are always passing on their books; rage at book vandals who scribble in ballpoint pen in the margins and underline lines they are particularly moved by; diarists; fetishes like only buying hard back; memories associated with inscriptions on the first page; the heady smell of old paper pockmarked with pinholes; serendipitious discoveries; the quirks of your local lending library, lifelong quests to source and own a whole series, say Granta or the Time Life series; first-edition fanatics; inheriting grandpa's collections and so on.

The piece should be about 800 words in length. Please do contribute and write in with your ideas.

Mail bombayana[at]indiatimes[dot]com