Dan S. MacAbre wrote

Here's a no doubt silly question :-) I find that I can hardly open some
of my older books now without the spine cracking, and a few pages
falling out. I was just wondering if there's anything that can be done
to prevent this, without boxing them up in the loft, or something.

You can remake the spine. What used to be called a maiden aunt
of mine used to run one of the last of the private lending librarys
and she showed me how to do that. Not trivial to do tho.

I was considering rubbing some kind of oil on the back, in the
hope that it might soak in over time, and make the glue a bit
more flexible again. But if course, it also might just make it all
gooey, and the pages might be even more likely to fall out.

Has anyone else found anything that makes their paperbacks last a bit
longer?

Don't break the spine when you read them.