Don’t get me wrong — I like Stephen King. To be specific, I think his early stuff is great. Most of his latter stuff has been very ho-hum if not just bad.

A few hours ago, a friend and I got into a discussion regarding the condition of books, and what should be done to people who abuse them. While I absolutely completely understand and appreciate his vehement desire to drag individuals into the street and shoot them (albeit, I’d like to do it to reckless drivers), I think it might be a bit extreme to do that to people who crack the spines of books. Truthfully, I think he was probably exaggerating his desires a tad.

I selected two books from my rather extensive personal library. The first is David Simon’s amazing “Homcide: A Year on the Killing Streets.” If you’ve never heard or read it, open a new browser window, go to Amazon.com, and order it. It’s an amazing book: for a year, Simon traveled with Baltimore’s Homicide detectives as a police intern, writing this true-crime novel that is, truly, more fascinating than any novel you could read. I’ve probably read it from cover to cover at least four times, and on hundreds of occasions I’ve grabbed it and read a few chapters while eating dinner or waiting on some work to be completed on my car, or when it was slow at work.

The other book is Stephen King’s “From A Buick 8.” I read this book once. I don’t remember if I actually finished it. I don’t remember what happened in it, except that I thought it paled when compared to his classic “Christine.” My most vivid memory of the plot comes from his book “On Writing”, when he describes his inspiration for the book.

Now, compare the photos I’ve taken of these books:

The cover of “Homicide” is torn and held on with scotch tape. The spine is cracked to hell and back. The binding is giving way. Pages are stained with liquid and wing sauce, many boast creases where I folded a corner to mark my place.

“From A Buick 8″ is in pristine condition. I could have brought it home from the book store ten minutes ago.

I suppose there could come a time when I grab my copy of “Homicide” with the hope of going to an appearance with David Simon in the hope of getting him to sign his name on its pages. Simon might have one or two reactions. He might look at the book, look at the tape, look at the binding, look at the use this copy has been through, and hand it back to me with a look that says “Please take better care of what I write.” But I hope that he’d take the book from me and look with fondness at those flaws and say, “When I see a book this well used, I know the reader has appreciated what I spent so much time crafting.” I hope most authors would have that view to their bound works: that signs of well use are signs of appreciation in this are, as much as a shiny wax shows a person’s pride in their car.

My copy of “Homicide” has a cracked spine. So does my copy of “Catch-22.” So do many of my books. I consider a cracked spine a mark of honor. And when I’m patching a book back together with tape and gum and glue, a pulp MacGuyver, I couldn’t be happier.