Lending Out Books

Everybody has different views on lending out and borrowing books and I thought I'd share mine seeing my latest experience.

Today I got myself into a little bit of a pickle. I was sitting in Geography and to fight the boredom me and my closest neighbours started talking about books. We talked about Eleanor & Park, a bit of John Green, some Harry Potter was touched and last but not least the Divergent Trilogy. A friend of a friend asked me if I have copies of the books, and I answered that yes I did. She immediately jumped on me and asked if she could borrow them from me because her friend wouldn't lend them to her. This made alarm bells ring in my head and I searched the most creative part of my mind for a plausible excuse. It's not the nicest way I know, but honestly I'm kind of anal about my books.

Everybody treats their books differently. Some people like to give their books annotations or they like their books to look well read. While I personally like my books to be read  at  the same time I go out of my way to avoid cracking the spine. I shudder when I read a library book or an assigned book at school and I see a previous reader has given it dog ears, and when I see someone reading with the cover bent it just gives me anxiety. Books aren't cheap so when I spend my money on books I like to take care of them. Lending out books puts this responsibility in others their hands and I am not certain some people can be trusted with this. I asked one of my friends their opinion on lending out books and she reacted in the same way, yay I'm not alone (Private dance party). But if you want to lend out your books to someone here are some tips.

1 Expectations
If your not certain someone will be careful enough with your book subtly tell them to be careful with it.

2 Time frame
Another negative part of lending out books is the uncertainty if you'll get it back or not. Give the person borrowing your book a time frame in which you expect them to return the book to you.

3 Marking Your Territory
To make sure you can always identify your copy mark them. Piss methaphorically all over them. OK maybe not that drastic but putting your name in there shouldn't be an issue. If you don't like marking your books try writing on washi tape it looks cute and it isn't permanent.

And if your still vehemently anti lending out that is fine too, and here are some tips to deal with that.

4 Gently reject 
Tell them to maybe try the library and see if they can lend the book there.

5 Elaborate
When they are still on your case for lending your copies tell them that you don't like lending out your books. Maybe touch on past experiences. Tell them about when someone didn't give you a book back or damaged a copy when you are always very careful with your books.

6 Evade
When all else fails make an excuse, you have tried your best to do it the nice way.
Examples:
- I have already lend my copies out.
- I have them stored away.
- I seem to have misplaced them.


Good luck with your borrowing and lending experiences! Also I am really interested to hear what your borrowing and lending stories are.