BOOKS are often judged, fairly or not, by their covers. Last week, the people who borrow them came under scrutiny as well.

A Straits Times reader, Mr Lin Qen Wen, blamed vandals and reckless borrowers for the 'countless tattered books in our libraries'.

'To me, this anti-social behaviour is more shocking than the tattered books,' he wrote in a Forum letter published last Monday.

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