we lose them, we rip them up, we write all over them

我们把书弄丢撕碎在上面涂写
--I write all over mine.

我就在自己的书上就涂写过
It's only a few generations ago

而在屈指可数的几代人之前
when there really weren't any bookstores to go to.

那时候还没什么书店可去
Your great-great-grandparents couldn't meander a bookstore,

你的曾曾祖父母不能去逛书店
to speak of, unless they lived in a special section of a special city.

当然除非他们生活在很特别的城市
Books are precious things.

书是非常珍贵的物品
A lot of them are assigned in this course.

这个课程中就会用到很多书
There's short ones, little ones, big ones,

有短篇小册子大部头
syntheses, novels, monographs.

综合体小说专著
Think of a book, just for a moment,

想一本书就一会儿
and then you can forget this if you want.

然后你可以忘掉它