Book lending.

I love recommending books to people and I especially love knowing how people liked my recommendations, but one thing that I don't particularly care for is actually lending my copies out to people. Sure, there are a select few people that I will loan my copies to, but otherwise I must awkwardly refuse or change the subject. Now, it might seem a bit selfish, my not sharing my books with others, but let me tell you about why I'm so protective of my books.

First, I like keeping my books in perfect condition. This meaning that the spines don't have any creases if I can help it, there are no dogeared pages, no spots or stains on pages, etc. Really, I like to keep them in the condition that I purchased them in. Now, my trust issues when it comes to these things began quite a few years ago when I lent my copy of Twilight to a dear friend.

At this point, I wasn't even a little hesitant in lending out my copy, because it was something that I was interested in at the time. I wanted my friend to read it, so I lent it to her expecting nothing bad to come of it. However, sadly I got my book back in pieces. It turns out that her dog had tried eating it, and it also managed to fall into a bathtub. How either of these happened I don't recall, but it was from then on that I stopped lending out my books for awhile. It was only truly devastating because it was a copy that my friend had signed and given to me before she moved away, and now all I have is a miserable copy of the book with a torn out title page. Despite the book choice, it was a true blow to my book confidence.

Honestly, could you really blame me? To have a book become so mutilated and ruined, and still lend out books, it seemed almost impossible. However, about a year or so ago, I lent my copy of Looking For Alaska to a different good friend. This one somehow managed to lose the book jacket. I just, agh. It was frustrating, oh so frustrating, that I think it was this point that I was pretty much done lending out my books. These two instances were enough for me to want to vehemently guard my collection. Now, I'll only lend my books to my mother and my best friend. A VERY select few.

As I like to keep my books in perfect condition, I tend to avoid situations in which I'd feel obligated to lend out my copies. I don't feel that this makes me a bad person. I want my books to remain nice and whole, so that maybe someday I'll have children or close family members who will like reading and treasure books as much as I do and I'll be able to show them my copies. Perhaps we'll even be able to chat about them and cry about them, and it'll be a lot of fun.

Truly, I like giving out recommendations best and seeing if people are interested enough to seek them out on their own.

So, how do you feel about lending out books? Do you get a bit stingy like me or are you ever generous and loaning them all of the time?