Good Morning all reader, writers and book bloggers. It is a fantastic morning and I am feeling extremely good. I have been nominated for three awards this week and I have found some amazing new blogs to follow. However, let us be a little thoughtful and answer this question….
What is your policy on book lending?
Do you give your books out to friends, strong in the belief that they will find their way back to you eventually, or do you refuse any request! Maybe you’re somewhere in the middle? Let me know!
mylittlebookblog 
I feel about the same as a parent letting their children stay at friend’s house. I trust the friend but…my babies 😦
awe I get. I think it’s sometimes awkward to say no though when your friend thinks well it’s only a book right? But to you it’s so much more 🙂 thanks for the comment!
Exactly! When my brothers want to read my books I often hound them with a long list of rules.
“Turn from the top right hand corner at this speed.”
“Don’t fold the pages use a book mark.”
“Don’t read my books while eating!”
And so on…
Once I lent someone all of my Heinlein book, about a dozen. I never saw them again. So I’m usually pretty careful. But then again, these days most of the fiction I read is on the Kindle. Electronics are like toothbrushes: they seem a little too personal to let just anybody use.
haha kindle, like toothbrushes…it kinda works though! Sorry you didn’t get your books back!
I get antsy about lending books, because 95% of the time they never come back 😀
that seems to be a reoccurring theme…..
I only lend books out to very special friends (3 different people) and I more of less give them a sermon on not breaking the spine or dog-earring MY PRECIOUS BOOKS.
The sermon might eventually stop them from wanting to borrow the books and you can keep them all 🙂
I used to give my books out to people. I won’t be anymore. I never get them back. I hate that I even lent them out! Never again.
It’s sad isn’t it because you want to share but don’t want to end up without your beloved books 😦
I know! Oh, the struggle, lol.
I love sharing my books (so long as I get them back and they’re not damaged, I’m cool). I also love being leant books (three of my recent reads and one that I’m working through now have been borrowed from friends). However, I feel that my books are somewhat “safer” because they’re all contacted. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to buy books in quite some time so as my tastes change and while I do love my books that I have, there’s not really that much that I can recommend.
I refuse. Every. Single. Time. – I don’t even break the spines of my own books let alone lend it to someone and have them steal my book’s virginity. It hurts me to think about it! And then there are hardbacks and collectibles. No, no, no, no, no….. nope. Nuh uh.
Most of my books are library books, so I’ve always viewed them as a temporary possession. I also am not much of a re-reader so I tend to pass books on. In my mind sharing the love of a good book is more valuable than the book itself.My hope is that the book will then move on to someone else.
Depends, some friends borrow me books so it’s only fair for me to do the same. Also if I know that person loves to read and will take care of my book then fine, sometimes I keep the dustjacket just to be same lol
Depends, some friends lend me books so it’s only fair for me to do the same. Also if I know that person loves to read and will take care of my book then fine, sometimes I keep the dust jacket just to be safe lol
Sry for the double reply
When I lend a book I assume I will not get it back. I recognize I will need to buy it again, but last week I was going through my shelves looking for something for my precocious niece to read and I no longer had the first book to any series. I just haven’t gotten around to replacing them….it was a touch disheartening but I hope it means they love the book rather than it sitting somewhere collecting dust.
One of the reasons I got a kobo was because I hate lending out books. I always find people never return them.
I don’t lend my books, and I don’t ask to borrow books. To me, books are prized possessions. They get worn by their owner. I underline and write in them frequently. When I look at a book and see the wear that’s come from my reading, or re-reading, or referencing it, I take some pride in that. It’s a reminder to me, also, of how I’ve grown…the way some people can measure their lives by the height of a tree planted when they were born. If I ever “lend” my books to anyone, it would only be someone living with me–my fiancee or our future children–because they’re almost as much a part of me as I am, myself. So to know a book has been further worn by them would be touching to me. And to add to that idea of “growing” with books, I also write my name and the date I started and finished a book in the upper left inside cover of every book I read, each time I read it. (Which means I don’t borrow library books either; if I want a book, I buy it.) Writing dates in my books helps measure my own growth by knowing what I was reading at what age in my life. It’s for posterity as well, when I will my “library” to my kids: when your dad (or granddad, or great granddad,…) was this age in this year, he was reading these books. It’s important to me that my books are MY books and no one else’s, in any way. So, no, Lizzy, much as I love your blog, you CAN’T borrow my books. 😉
I lent my one friend two books last October, so now whenever I lend my books to the friend I know will return them I always have a couple rules, “No pen/pencil marks.” ” No bent pages/covers.” “Must return my book” and most importantly “The fictional boy is mine.”