Do you lend your books?

[aria]

i lend my books all the time

though ive regretted it several times - i got a book back 4 years later then I had a falling out with a friend who had some of my books and naturally, i've never seen them since - i've got to say that it's :yes: to be the person to introduce sb to a really great book

it's kinda like writing on books.

some would never in a million years lend a book/write on a book

and some would

thing is i really need to get this book back and if i don't get it back, that's it, im never gonna do this ever again :cry:

[PLEASE DON'T STEP ON ME]

So what you're basically saying... Is that you're like a librarian?!?

[aria]

:raise: :cry: :hide:

the minute i join their cabal of evil rest assured i shall draw and quarter myself

im undermining their authority slowly but surely by opening alternative routes of book-exchange and thus saying a big fuck you to their fascist monoploy :erm

you could say i'm doing guerrilla work toward their complete annihilation :therock:

yes, yes, that's exactly what i'm doing :erm

bringing the enemy down from within :erm

[Intern Kate]

i'm free and easy about lending books. once i lent a book to someone and he dropped it in a river but quickly replaced it for me, so i didn't care. it would've sucked though if that'd happened to be a treasured book i'd written copious notes in.

my favorite librarians wear turtle-necks and have jowls. there's usually one at every library.

[aria]

librarians have scowls. there's usually one at every library.


that's been my experience too :cry:

[Squirrel]

I hardly ever read books twice and I don't like to use libraries, so I often find myself buying a book, reading it once and then giving it away. It is a terribly inefficient system, but so far it's the only one I can stick to.

[Kinbote]

I only loan books to close friends, and even then I worry, a lot, about getting them back - it gnaws on on me. I ask all sorts of questions about their progress under the guise of Looking Forward to Having a Good Conversation About This Crazy Old Book, but really, I just want it back.

And although I enjoy being in libraries, I detest taking books out of them. There's that horrible plastic wrap, the odor of binding glue, the even worse odors I can't identify, and all those strange yellow or orange or brown stains on the pages from previous readers. Plus, when I like a book, I insist on owning it, and it seems stupid to read a library book, like it, and return it, then go to the bookstore and buy the book and put it on the shelf without looking at it (since I just did, I mean - even most mediocre books I own, I reread at some point).

There's a librarian at my local library who glares at me every time I go downstairs into the stacks, where they hide all their books by non-bestselling non-Anglo-Americans, and every time I come back up. I think she thinks I'm masturbating down there, or I guess stealing their rotting copies of Sentimental Education and Exercises in Style and the like. Because that's what people do a lot, I'm sure. It's just the charged atmosphere.

[wasp in a jar]

i'm hopeless at lending books. i'm hopeless at borrowing them too as i think i'd rather buy them and own them than have to return them. plus i am anally retentive about people bending/breaking the spines of books and am utterly neurotic.

no one has ever returned books to me in the past. the one time someone did, it looked like it had been dropped in ink.

bad experience, perhaps?

[ramblingrose]

People treat me like a library, or maybe a free shop. I have books scattered all over the world due to them being borrowed and then lost by the borrower. I don't mind too much usually, but there are some that I would only loan to a select few. I have always always written my name in the front of books as soon as I get them home, because then I can prove they're mine. I'm a bugger for turning pages down and writing stuff in margins though so I'm not the best person to lend to.
The thing I really REALLY hate though, is when I lend someone a book and they DON'T FUCKING READ IT!!!! Peasants. Hardly any of my friends read much, which is sort of hateful.

[i]

I lend out my books. I am careful about borrowing them tho, I know some of my good friends I would never ask because they keep the spines intact and the covers rabbit-ear-free. Personally I'm not that fussed about the condition of the book as long as it's in one piece, there's no folding (I HATE when people fold a corner to bookmark a book!) and no writing.

I still don't get the librarian hate, Effie. Just about every librarian I've met has been nice. It must be some Molvanian phenomenon.

[Barbarian Love Elephant]

I hardly ever read books twice and I don't like to use libraries, so I often find myself buying a book, reading it once and then giving it away. It is a terribly inefficient system, but so far it's the only one I can stick to.

Same

I also don't wish to frequent with poor people

[wasp in a jar]

library books smell funny. like baby vomit and old people.

[Squirrel]

Same

I also don't wish to frequent with poor people


I mostly just like to take my time with them. Like if I'm busy, but I have to give it back by a certain day, and then I don't have it, but I want to read something... also if I don't like the book I feel bad, 'cause I'm maybe depriving somebody else of it who would like it more.

[Jackal]

No one I know reads!!!! Oh my goodness, I just realized that.

Except my mom but she only reads murder mysteries-about 5 a week!

I always buy the books, it's the only thing I really spend money on. If they are great I keep them to read again. If not I give them to the goodwill or someone.

[LOST_kitty_k]

I don't lend books or anything else I own. Not even to good friends. The only exception I made was when I got a documentary on Titanic and I lent it to my mother in-law and she kept it for half a year. I wanted to get it back so I could watch it again. She has movies we let her borrow a few years ago. I value my books more than I value my movies so I put my favorites on the bottom row of the bookcase where people are less likely to notice them. It's in a dark area of the room next to the couch and the in-laws can't bend down that far so for now I'm safe. I don't like borrowing them either. When I first got here someone lent me a book and every time after that it was "oh are you done with it yet, I wanted to read it again" so the whole time I just thought, fucking hell, why did you even bother offering?

[kendra]

I would lend a book to someone I knew and lived close to, so when they still hadn't returned it after 6 months I could get it back easily. I've always been a prompt returner and I've never damaged someone's book.

I'm not too picky over the state of my own books - I don't dogear the pages, but I have written in some that have been analyzed for schoolwork and because most of my books are well-loved paperbacks their spines have seen better days.

[TheImplodingVoice]

Depends on the book and the person

[motorcyclemptiness]

I've been bitten in the ass one too many times to lend books anymore!

To be fair, though, I've gotten tons of borrowed loot from people who I've fallen out with.

[Cheryl K]

I love my books, I'm slowly working on a collection of textbooks on earth sciences from the early 20th century, and as a result of the topic not many people ever want to borrow anything. But Alex has a couple of my paperbacks and I know I'll get them back in good condition.

[Intern Kate]

does anyone else have a collection of English class novels from high school?

[Nak Nak]

does anyone else have a collection of English class novels from high school?

I have two copies of Hobson's choice, one copy of Julius Caesar, a copy of Mice and Men and a couple of english and german dictionaries.

All of them have Colin Primrose written on the sleeve.

[Hambakmaritru]

i don't lend any of my books...they're all bound in human skin. and the ettiquette on borrowing books wrapped in human skin is that no one borrows them

[Trickster]

i'm sure there was a film/book/tv mini series - whatever - where the character found a book that was bound in leather made from human skin... what was that again?

[Hambakmaritru]

it was the evil dead, you idiot!!! i know because I am evil alive...then when i die, i will be the evil dead, so i know what im talking about, mormon!!! :mdk:

[Trickster]

hmm. well i've never seen the evil dead so it can't be that i'm thinking of. must be the same idea in something else.

[Hambakmaritru]

im sorry you were wrong fool!!!!!!!!!! :mdk: :mdk:

[Kinbote]

does anyone else have a collection of English class novels from high school?

Some - off the top of my head, I know kicking around are Jane Eyre, To the Lighthouse, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, MacBeth, The Sound and the Fury, and an Oxford Study Bible. Some more in boxes somewhere.

[kryten]

I used to lend them freely, then got burned once - traded someone my complete collection of the Hitchhikers series for a dragonlance book (which sucked) and they made off with my collection... so now I'm more wary.

[motorcyclemptiness]

I used to play "school" with my friends via all the text books my brother never returned when he quit high school. I wrote the names of my favorite singers in the who had this book last part. Paula Abdul, Janet Jackson, and Neheh Cherry all studied American History that year.

[ramblingrose]

I used to play "school" with my friends via all the text books my brother never returned when he quit high school. I wrote the names of my favorite singers in the who had this book last part. Paula Abdul, Janet Jackson, and Neheh Cherry all studied American History that year.


Who came top?

My haul from school/college includes Christopher Timothy's autobiography, a Jossy's Giants novel, some poetry and a physics textbook.

[motorcyclemptiness]

I believe Paula had an A- average, based on her stunning essay on the Gettsyburg Address.

[aria]

i used to write the lyrics of songs i liked in my history book...beck, james, blur, all good men fought the good war against boredom, right beside the wwI wwII troops. They shall not be forgotten.


i'm sure there was a film/book/tv mini series - whatever - where the character found a book that was bound in leather made from human skin... what was that again?

:cry:

[robomarie]

that movie scared me when i was (to quote Bailey) a beeb.

[Trickster]

nah it wasn't that, either.... i'm pretty sure it was a genuinely creepy book (not pretend scary)... cant remember what though.

however i did go to see hocus pocus at the cinema for my 10th birthday. :D

[motorcyclemptiness]

Umm, if it wasn't the Evil Dead, was it the Necronomicon movie? Haven't seen it, but if it deals with the Necronomicon, I suppose . . .

[ramblingrose]

In the police museum in Edinburgh there is a business card holder made from the skin of either Burke or Hare.

was that even slightly relevant?

[aria]

In the police museum in Edinburgh there is a business card holder made from the skin of either Burke or Hare.

and his skeleton is in the university of edinburgh's medical school ... they used it for anatomy lessons up until the 90's and now it's under lock and key in a basement somewhere

im such a ghoul :cry: