The book

    First of all i do not think this actually happened, but if it did that is utterly disgusting. i cannot imagine holding something and then finding out it was covered in human skin.
   I think this is a really good poem. i think it is a metaphor for how beautiful something can be before you search to figure out what it is. The man in the poem obviously liked the book because he kept it with him. He thought it was great until he went to try to figure out what it was. maybe the author is saying that we need to not search so hard for what something is and just take it as what we think it is if that makes us happy. If something makes us happy and we try to look too deeply into it we could ruin it. The author is saying that sometimes it is okay to take this at face value and not go deeper than that. because if we always try to investigate further it may turn out to be like a book bound in human skin - horrifying and gross. "how beautiful it was until i knew." The book was beautiful to him until he took it to someone to see what it actually was. He should have just kept it as a book that made him happy.
   I really like the part of the poem right after he finds out that the book is bound in human skin and he just stands there looking at the book. it takes him awhile to comprehend what he has learned. and slowness he comprehends and his repulsion for it grows.  I really like this because i can really see a man standing there holding a book  "and turning it over in my [his] hands" slowly figuring out that what he is holding is holding, and what he used to think was beautiful, is grotesque.
  As i am reading it again i realize the poet never says it is good or bad that he found out what the book actually is. I guess maybe he is leaving it to the reader to decide. but he could have meant that just because you think a thing is beautiful does not mean it actually is. He could be saying that you need to check into all things or you could be carrying around a book bound in human skin. The more i think about it the more that i think it is this possibility to me because i would not want to be carrying around something like that thinking how beautiful it was. The poet could mean both ways but i think i am going to take it as a person needs to investigate everything so that the person is not carrying around something horrifying.