I'm happy to have tracked down my first piece of USC book destruction - not, I hasten to add, because of any intrinsic delight in murdered volumes, but because of my ongoing, if at the moment slightly dormant interest in all the unconventional things that one can do to books in order to draw attention to their materiality. Though for all I know, this book was suicidal: perhaps it slipped from the hands of its reader into a bath (or, since this is Los Angeles, hot tub, or swimming pool). It can hardly have been left out in the rain (and at this point, I apologize to anyone in New Jersey or elsewhere on the east coast who may feel understandably sensitive on the topic of drowned books). Perhaps under a lawn sprinkler?
In any case, it was resting on a window ledge half way down the stairs in Taper Hall. It has the air of a thick law textbook, but I didn't disturb it to find out.
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