I bought a book to read and when I read a book I start at the beginning. The very beginning. Prefaces, forwards, introductions acknowledgements, dedications. I also don’t finish until I get to the end if there should be an afterward. (After words?) If is written I will read it.

This particular book I bought, and after reading the forward I’m so glad I did. I say again, and will stress, I bought this book. With money. American made money in an American book store. Yes there are some bookstores left and I still frequent and patronize them.

I’m not in the habit of stealing books. At least I didn’t think so. Apparently this particular author thought differently. In his preface, his 22 page preface, he says, “what happens in libraries in the U.S. is a theft of services on the same scale as the enslavement of blacks.” A strong sentiment that. It was said, er printed, in reference to authors receiving a single royalty for each book bought by a library though lent to “everybody with a library card … twenty-six times in one year, fifty-two times in two years.” Personally I’m glad he expanded that thought just in case my ability to master multiplication failed me at that critical moment.

Is borrowing a book from a library stealing? I hadn’t thought about it. If it is I am guilty of it hundreds of times over. Of course many of those times were the first time I had read a particular author and it was that exposure that led me to buy hard or electronic copies of his or her other works. But theft of the first book is still theft I suppose. To that unnamed author I apologize and repent. I suppose I can send him a few bucks in restitution although I don’t recall ever borrowing one of his books from the library. In fact, I don’t think I ever saw one of his books in the library but that’s a different story.

He can use those dollars to pay for the paper he probably read at the diner, the magazine he perused at the doctor’s office, the cable fee for the game recap he watched at the barbershop, or the medical advice he asked me for at last year’s Fourth of July picnic. Ok, it wasn’t last year but that really did make a nice flow, don’t you think?

I suppose he was right in his criticism of the lending library system and he has the right to voice said criticism. And what better way. Really. In a book that somebody might have gotten out of library. That will teach them for sure. If they bothered to read the preface.

I have the right to be insulted by his criticism and to express my dismay at being insulted. I bought that book. At full retail. And waded through it even after I was so insulted 17 pages into it. I could have shown him and not finished the book (or even the preface since I still had 5 pages of that to get through) but to be honest I already paid for the book and he surely spent the royalty so why not get my money’s worth out of it.

Now if I can just figure out a way to get my money’s worth out of it.