TIL a trick to flatten curled pages with a damp sponge

2 comments

2 Comments

Huh. I always thought that trick was just gonna make pages wrinkly. But I tried it on a beat up paperback last week. Wet sponge, light swipe, let it dry flat. Worked way better than piling books on it.

kevin_carr27d ago

My copy of Dune from 1985 has like three different coffee rings on it from a camping trip back in 2016. I tried flattening it under a stack of textbooks for a week and it still looked like a crumpled up napkin. Then I remembered this sponge trick my buddy told me about at a garage sale and figured what the hell. The page edges went a little wavy for a day but once it dried they settled down almost flat. People get way too worked up about book condition like its a museum piece or something.