My Library

We recently read The Appeal by John Grisham for my book discussion group. Someone in our group was unable to pick the book up for themselves and Jennifer S. generously offered to send them her copy. I thought that was awfully nice of her. I, on the other hand, guard my books like a mother bear with her cubs. I can think of four different times that I have ever loaned out my books.

The first time was in high school when I loaned a girl my entire collection of Christopher Pike books. When did I get them back? Hmmm. I think it was about two or three years after graduation and I had to harass her a bit to get them back and then they weren't all there. By this time, I didn't even care to read them anymore but it was the principle of the thing. I don't even have any idea what I did with them when I got them back, lmao.

The next loan was a series of sci-fi fantasy books that I loaned to a certain family member. Never did see those books again.

Then, I loaned some of my Nora Roberts hard covers to another family member. Those books are lost to me forever too I suppose.

The last time, Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz, one of my all time favorite books, was "loaned" to a friend without my permission. She lost it, I had a cow, she found it, and I was pretty mad.

See? I hold onto my books. I consider them a collection and I feel protective of them. If they were a collection of (geez, what do people collect these days?) coins! a coin collection, would you expect people to casually loan them out? Anyway, I think if we ever had a house fire and I lost my books, I'd probably have to be committed and medicated. The only books that I don't feel an attachment to are my romances. I used to read romances like it was going out of style. Most of those books, with the exception of the ones that were sentimental for me, I traded for other novels. I sort of feel like I outgrew romances, no offense to anyone. And I also resell most of my text books. I keep the ones that were from Lit classes and writing classes that I'll use again as references.

Maybe I'm a bit obsessive. Umm. Notice the title of this blog, heheh. I LOVE books. The more I have the better. More book shelves would be nice too since some of my books are in boxes in my bedroom closet and I like to have them out and about. Certainly I can't be the only one that feels this way at least to some extent. I'd seriously loan my books to friends if I ever thought I'd get them back but history shows that people aren't too committed to returning books to me. This is another reason why I don't like to borrow books for myself. I like to HAVE them. I'm the same way about movies. I like to own the DVD's which is why I never got on the DVD ripping and burning bandwagon. But that's a whole other obsession.

So, how does everyone else feel about their libraries? Am I the only stingy reader out there?