What is it about books that brings out the worst in otherwise honourable people?
By my twenties I'd learnt it was a bad idea to lend books to anyone except my mother, even if I'd written my name at the front. These days I try to lend only to my daughter. The blood tie, I find, protects my property - or maybe it's just that you can nag a close relative to return a book, where you can't nag a friend.
(Don't think I'm being self-righteous about this issue. There are at least three books on my shelves which are not mine. Plus a school copy of Love's Labour's Lost.)
And it's always the best books that fail to return - the ones you love so much you tell a friend about them. Then each time you see the friend, she forgets the book. Or you don't see each other for a while, and it gets forgotten. Or she's too busy to read it, and never does, and time passes and you realize she has now moved to the Isle of Wight... Or, by the time you remember to ask for it, she's totally forgotten and denies all knowledge, and says you are thinking of someone else. The anticipated pleasure of discussing a favourite novel with a fellow reader seldom materializes.
Eventually you give up, and buy another copy.
Footnote: writing this has reminded me of a book of my mother's I lent to an obnoxious girl at school, and never got back. Jules Feiffer's Passionella, a collection of witty graphic novellas. I've just tracked it down and ordered it. Three cheers for the internet!
Hi
ReplyDeleteBad people for running off with your books that you've loaned them!
I only ever failed to return one book "Possession" by AS Byatt. The reason being it belonged to a girlfriend of my friend. By the time I had finished and contacted my friend, he had split with her and she had moved out without a forwarding address.
I tried to return the book to him but he wouldn't have it. I guess it was a pretty acrimonious split!
Anyway, that is the only time I've ever kept a book that wasn't mine, honest!!
Take care
x
I generally only loan books to my mum, who returns them (sometimes ages) later and often with my name in her handwriting on the flyleaf. I guess she's paranoid about forgetting who lent her what.
ReplyDeleteI used to work in a library and the joy of datestamping return dates has stayed with me. As has the joy of ascending old fashioned wheeled ladders to access the ceiling high shelves and being manoeuvred into place to reshelve books by a colleague.
K
Kitty, you are a pearl among women. Did you like Possession? It's one of those novels I am quite certain, without ever having taken a look, that I would not enjoy.
ReplyDeleteK, libraries are not what they were (especially Shoreditch Library). When I get my mansion, I too shall whiz about on my own wheeled ladder in my own library.
Was it this news story which triggered your thoughts on the unreturned books issue, Lexi? Or happy coincidence?
ReplyDeletehttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8627835.stm
K
I loaned a book to a friend I don't see often, whose life is usually in serious disarray, and today she returned it. I didn't think I'd see it again. This is the second book I've loaned her that's been returned without a word from me. On the other hand, there's people you just KNOW will return your books who completely FORGET they ever had them.
ReplyDeleteK, you're right, the story about George Washington not returning two library books did inspire this post. I meant to mention it then forgot...
ReplyDeleteYes, Karen, returning borrowed books is an unpredictable virtue; could it have its own gene that only a minority like Kitty and your friend possess?
Oh yes, that drives me up the wall. We have so many books lent out and not returned many years later, that we've pretty much had to stop lending books. Which is very sad.
ReplyDeleteHi again!
ReplyDeletePossession- hmm. The thing is I do remember enjoying reading it - the heroine (the contemporary one not the historical one) was a bit wishy washy but the prose kept me reading.
But the thing that saved this book for me? Was the very last page! :-)
It was a one side page epilogue and it broke my heart! I remember that last page to this day! I think I was emotionally traumatised for weeks after!
:-)
Take care
x
Gary, how do you refuse a direct request to borrow a book? I try to remember to say airily, 'I don't lend books' in much the same way I say, 'I don't do lunch.' (Except of course, if I was so lucky, with an agent and publisher. I don't think they do dinner...)
ReplyDeleteNow, Kitty, you've made me want to look at the last page of Possession, which is hardly fair on the poor book.
The most important thing is to stop me making the offer to lend!
ReplyDeleteWhat happens is I get excited describing a book I love to a visitor. Then I say, "You must borrow it." And the damage is done. We'll never see that book again. So by force of will I keep my mouth shut.
It's actually fairly rare for someone to ask to borrow a book without being prompted. When it happens, we conspicuously write the title and their name on a sheet taped up in the kitchen. Even so, there's some lossage.
Now about that hefty first edition of "Songbirds of Lower Tiddly on the Wopping" I lent you in, what was it? November 1983?
ReplyDeleteHmmm, I remember that fascinating volume, Alan - with the hand-tinted engravings and the erratum on page 119 - but you've clearly forgotten I returned it at the 1985 Bedford Square Book Festival. You were a bit distracted, because that was the one when Odie bit the editor on the ankle - remember, he joked he'd make your name mud with agents and publishers throughout the Western hemisphere?
ReplyDeleteI think he was joking...
I always keep my books in pristine condition, indeed many of them you wouldn’t actually know I’ve read (apart from the pages of marginalia); I think they’re objects that deserve respect.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was 13 I leant a book to someone at school (who’s name I won’t disclose as he’s now well known in his field). It went out in perfect condition… and came back as dog-eared and tatty as you can imagine, the spine positively shattered.
I learnt my lesson. From that day forth I have never leant another book. And should anyone dare to ask to borrow I fix them with such an evil stare that they never ask again…
Besides as a soon to be published author (and I’m sure you won’t be too far behind me, Lexi) I want to dissuade the leading of books because it can only mean fewer sales – and writers are having a difficult enough time of it as it is.
G
I once had a boyfriend like you in that respect, Guy - he could read a paperback and you'd never know it. He also (and still does) sorted casserole or stew into its separate constituents on his plate. Unnatural, I call it.
ReplyDeleteThat's a very good point about lending = fewer sales; but if a book is exceptional, and I know I will be re-reading it at intervals for the rest of my life, I buy my own copy. No harm in us writers aiming at this standard...
I sort of cheat these days by mostly reading hardbacks... though you'll be glad to know I have never sorted a casserole or stew into its constituent parts!
ReplyDeleteI usually warn people that I am awful at returning books. Yesterday I mentioned to a friend that I would probably ruin her book if she lent it to me, but she did anyway. She lent me six.
ReplyDeleteJane, welcome to my blog. As the Sheriff of Nottingham said to Errol Flyn, By my troth, but you're a bold rascal!
ReplyDeleteYour poor friend. One can only hope those six books were destined for the Oxfam shop.
Books are not holy. They are meant to be touched, read, shared, and talked about. I love seeing a dog-eared book because it means it has been read. Lastly, books are meant to be paper, made from trees--a renewable resource. (Full disclosure, I am not wholly pure, I do own an iPhone with ebooks on it.)
ReplyDeleteNorm, keep spreading the word. I think of you every time someone posts on a forum that e-readers will 'save trees' and thus protect the environment.
ReplyDeletePaper books have amazing stamina. I own a Margaret Drabble that went through the washing machine. It's still readable.
Thanks Lexi,
ReplyDeleteSubstituting plastic for paper reminds me of a movie where a character complains of a headache. His friend, a tough-as-nails soldier, smiles. “Let me show you a trick,” he says. The soldier breaks his friend’s finger. The pain of a broken finger trumps a headache. Problem solved.
When you see those comments about ereaders "saving trees" tell them, "If it is not grown; it has to be mined."
If you think timber harvesting is ugly, imagine an open-pit mine two miles across and three-quarters of a mile deep. Within ten years, the cutover forest area will be covered with new growth, whereas Kennecott Copper’s Bennington Mine in Utah will still be visible from outer space one hundred years from today and everything in the periodic table will be in the waste tailings.
Wood uses far less energy because the tree is its own "factory," as a result there is a net energy/CO2 refund. Conversely, one ton of raw plastic creates 2 1/2 tons of CO2 and metal just under that amount.
Norm,
ReplyDeleteMay I borrow your iPhone?
I promise to return it.
How many times have I done this... and will I never learn?!
ReplyDeleteThere is one person I used to lend books to who lived up to practically all of your examples, except it wasn't actually the Isle of Wight that she moved to. Finally my own dad gave in and bought me replacement copies of the four books she'd gone off with because *he'd* been waiting for so long to read them once she'd finished! :)
Hi Hants (if I may call you that),
ReplyDeleteYour comment shows the value of parents - every now and then, they can whiz in like God and solve one's problems. Speaking as a parent myself, it's nice to be able to do this.
But you really must learn to say no...
Alan,
ReplyDeleteGlad to. Hop on up north and we'll go to the *free* Litfest 2010 nearby and you can try it out for the weekend.
- Norm
That sounds really nice. Waiting for the lottery to come through!
ReplyDelete