Chop up your books | Attainable Felicity | Matt Kirkland

Attainable Felicity

Matt Kirkland

20260915

Chop up your books

This is my appeal to readers everywhere: you should take a knife to your books.
(And no, not in the sense that the destructive AI-scanners do.)
Like apparently everybody else, my book club recently picked out Lonesome Dove. I’m not a Western guy, but it’s clear that this pulitzer-winner earned it. It’s good.
But come on: this is an 850+ page paperback! It is what I call Too Big.

It’s going to tire out your hands to hold up an 850-page book for the time it takes to read an 850-page book. If you read in bed, it’s going to tire your arms out, trying to hold this giant tome over your head. If you want to take this book on a plane or bus, it’s going to take up half of your bag.
So, I would like to recommend you to a practice I call Chop That Book Up Into Reasonable Sizes.

It takes a few minutes and very few tools. You also can enjoy reading reasonably-sized volumes of big books.
At the risk of parroting ‘you can just do things’, I’m telling you: You Can Just chop up your book. Nobody will call the cops. Authors don’t mind! (well, I don’t think so, and I wouldn’t mind if you chopped up my book, which I freely admit is also Too Big).
Here’s what I do when the book is Too Big:

Buy a copy. Don’t do this with library books.
Paperbacks are easiest but hardbacks work fine too. Think about the format you like to read and look at its pages. Do you like the type sizing? The margins?
Find the natural break points. Lonesome Dove is a great case here; it’s divided into three Parts, and each Part makes a great smaller volume. But otherwise you’re looking for chapter breaks.
Crack that spine. Bend the book alllllll the way open at the first break point. Manhandle it. If the book is perfect-bound (which means the pages are glued together along the spine, most paperbacks are), you can bend the spine backwards enough to see the glue strip. If you’ve got a hardback that’s actually stitched together, then look for a break between signatures (those are the groupings of pages that are stitched together). Signatures are still going to be glued together in most cases. Here’s a comparison of binding types.
X-acto that baby. Carefully slice between the sections, right into the glue. Bookbinders glue is great stuff - you can slice into it neatly with a good sharp blade, but you won’t mess up the glue’s grip on surrounding pages.
Voila: you have volumes. Next you’ll want to bind it in some new ersatz cover. If you try to carry around just the section of the book without any cover, you will soon learn what covers are for! Individual pages will snag, rip, and peel off. Trust me, you want a new cover.
You can use anything, but I recommend a manila folder. These are great: firm enough to protect the book block (the actual pages), but cheap and disposable feeling. Fold a manila folder around your new smaller volume. Make sharp creases. Trim it to size with your x-acto blade.
Then glue it on! You can get bookbinders glue, but honestly Elmers will work just fine. You’re not binding this book to make an heirloom: you’re rebinding it for your own convenience. Smear a line of glue in the new spine, and use binder clips will hold the manila folder in place. Let it dry.
Label it! I think a bold sharpie does the job here. I’ve had books where I gave it more detail, but I love the unpretentiousness of a marker.
Enjoy your reasonably-sized book.

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The Sea Hates a Coward

Matt Kirkland proposes a method for managing large books, which he terms "Chop That Book Up Into Reasonable Sizes," arguing that oversized volumes impose physical constraints on the reader when handling, reading, or transporting them. He advocates for readers to physically alter the structure of large books to create smaller, more manageable volumes.

To begin this process, Kirkland suggests purchasing a copy of the book, noting that paperbacks are the simplest starting point, although hardbacks can also be utilized depending on the preferred reading format, page sizing, and margins. The next crucial step involves identifying natural break points within the text, which can come from structural divisions like parts or chapter breaks. To physically separate the book, the author advises examining the spine to determine the nature of the binding. For books where pages are glued along the spine, the binding may be manipulated to reveal the glue strip. Conversely, in hardbacks that are stitched, breaks should be identified between signatures, which are the groupings of pages sewn together.

Once the break points are determined, the separation is achieved by carefully slicing between the sections into the adhesive. The author notes that bookbinder's glue can be used for this separation, as it allows for a clean cut into the glue without disrupting the grip on the surrounding pages. Following the separation, the resulting smaller sections require new protection, as individual pages would otherwise suffer damage from carrying without covers. Kirkland recommends using a manila folder for this purpose, as it provides sufficient protection while being inexpensive and disposable. These sections are then folded into the manila folder, and sharp creases are made, which are then trimmed to the desired size using an X-acto blade.

The final stage involves reassembling the sections into new books. This is accomplished by gluing the smaller volumes onto the manila folder using bookbinder's glue or Elmers glue, secured by binder clips to hold the construction in place while it dries. Finally, labeling the new volumes is recommended, suggesting the use of a marker to add detail. The overall objective of this meticulous process is to transform an unwieldy, large tome into a collection of reasonably sized books tailored for the reader's convenience.