I try not to lend books as I pick them with care (I rarely chance buying a book I might not love) and so almost always want to hold on to them. Even the ones I haven’t enjoyed feel like they have my time invested into them and are not to be given away. My late mother-in-law used to love perusing my book shelves and picking one or two off, which always brought me out in a cold sweat. She was a voracious reader, so able to finish them in the time before she was due to leave most of the time. She would give away her own books the minute she had finished them, so I probably gained far more than I ever lost to her! I gave my beloved old copy of my favourite book to my oldest friend as a wedding gift, knowing him not to be a reader, inscribed with a note as to why the book was so important to me and why the gift, therefore, was so special. I know he’s never ever read that book, nor likely moved it from the book shelf! My replacement copy really isn’t the same and I’ve not been inclined to dip back into it since. Hold onto your books!
I bet he treasures it though and is just waiting for the perfect moment to read it! (You wouldn't take it on holiday for example ...) Glad the rest of your library survived your MIL's depradations!
Oh, and there's a lovely quote at the beginning of Alberto Manguel's short book, 'Packing My Library': 'I believe that to lend a book is an incitement to theft.' Don't be complicit to a crime, I say!
I try not to lend books as I pick them with care (I rarely chance buying a book I might not love) and so almost always want to hold on to them. Even the ones I haven’t enjoyed feel like they have my time invested into them and are not to be given away. My late mother-in-law used to love perusing my book shelves and picking one or two off, which always brought me out in a cold sweat. She was a voracious reader, so able to finish them in the time before she was due to leave most of the time. She would give away her own books the minute she had finished them, so I probably gained far more than I ever lost to her! I gave my beloved old copy of my favourite book to my oldest friend as a wedding gift, knowing him not to be a reader, inscribed with a note as to why the book was so important to me and why the gift, therefore, was so special. I know he’s never ever read that book, nor likely moved it from the book shelf! My replacement copy really isn’t the same and I’ve not been inclined to dip back into it since. Hold onto your books!
I bet he treasures it though and is just waiting for the perfect moment to read it! (You wouldn't take it on holiday for example ...) Glad the rest of your library survived your MIL's depradations!
Oh, and there's a lovely quote at the beginning of Alberto Manguel's short book, 'Packing My Library': 'I believe that to lend a book is an incitement to theft.' Don't be complicit to a crime, I say!