Conference season is still in full flow and yesterday my research partner and I travelled to the lovely Lake District to present our paper. At least I've heard it's lovely; all I actually saw was rain and a lot of soggy sheep.
However, this entailed train journeys of several hours during which I managed to grab some reading time, amidst gossip and an in-depth discussion of our current favourite reality TV shows, which the men sat on the seats next to us seemed to particularly enjoy (or perhaps endure might be a better word).
I was reading Princess Lieven's letters and waxed lyrical about how interesting they are. They really are fascinating, giving a personal insight into the early nineteenth century as she reports conversations she had with people like the Duke of Wellington, George IV and the future William IV. A particularly amusing part of the sections I read yesterday was her description of a stay in 1821 in Brighton at King George's homes and the Duke of Wellington's reaction to the over the top luxury when he was invited to stay for the first time. I also enjoyed his rants about how Europe would have been better under Bonaparte - not something I expected to read from the Duke of Wellington!
My colleague was very interested in my description of the letters, who Princess Lieven was and the circles she mixed in, as she has a similar love of history, so she asked to borrow the book...
My heart sank with a thud as I said with, I am sure, quite evident panic: 'Of course!'.
Now it's not that I don't trust her, I do. It's just that it's my book, one of my precious volumes that I like to have in my home just in case I want to refer to it or just look at it. Which I know I won't but still, it makes me nervous to not have it in my own safe-keeping. Yet how can I not let her borrow it after saying so much about how good it is?
I knew I should never have talked about it. Last time I did this (about twelve years ago) I told a friend's boyfriend how good a book was, but then realised that he wanted to borrow it and would take it as a personal affront if I didn't let him. So I lent it to him. When they moved house a few years later I asked my friend if her by-now husband had, by any chance, come across it.
'Oh he lost that ages ago'.
I let it pass, to her face, but it was marked up against him forever: BOOK LOSER - and I have neither forgiven, nor forgotten.
I see other people passing books around the office to each other with gay abandon and it makes my insides go tight. I would like to be that generous and carefree but I just can't. I have come to the conclusion that I am a book miser.
What makes this worse is that I am terribly two-faced about it; I have a book that the very same colleague who is causing my current stress lent me two years ago! How terrible is that? I don't want to give it back unread, but I don't really want to read it - it is The Master by Colm Toibin and my desires to read about Henry James are few and far between. I keep waiting for that day when I will joyfully pick it up, finish it and then be able to return it but that day just doesn't come.
I know that this book miserliness is probably a serious personal flaw that I should work on, but what I think I'll do is what I've done for the past few years: just not tell people about the books I'm reading. Apart from on this blog of course - but don't ask to borrow anything I write about.
7 comments:
When I was in elementary school, I would only lend a friend a book if they lent me one at the same time. That way I had a hostage. lol
The last time I lent books out was two, maybe three years ago, to one of my best friends. I still haven't seen them...she keeps saying she put them in the mail, but they never appear. I wouldn't care toooooooo much, but one of them was a birthday gift from another close friend and I want that one and its inscription back! And now she's off an a world adventure for a year, so I have to wait until next summer at the earliest, lol. Never again.
P.S.: the Lake District is gorgeous! And The Master was a very good read. ;)
Oh, I know exactly what you mean! I still wistfully think about two cheesy mysteries I lent to a classmate in 6th grade some upteen zillion years ago. I hadn't even read them, but I had just bought a whole pile of books and knew I wouldn't get to them for a while, and she so solemnly promised that she would give them back! (Grrrr, mutter.)
I still do lend out books ever now and then, but only those that I wouldn't weep over losing. (I try to deny the existence of books that were gifts when making reading suggestions.) And books I borrow always go to the top of my TBR pile.
I love Eva's hostage idea :-)
I hardly ever lend books. I know of only one person I would allow to have one of mine, safe in the knowledge that it will come winging back to me. I have had too many upsets over this and once lost a friend as she simply thought I was making far too much fuss as she had lost a book of mine. I told her it was not the book loss so much that I minded but her what a fuss about nothing attitude. If you have somebody else's property then you should take care of it. I do.
You have just described me perfectly. I hate to loan out books but can't seem to say no. I currently have four(!) books out on loan right now and it causes me a great deal of stress to think about it. Maybe I should take your advice and refrain from talking about my books so much.
As I spent my career in public libraries, from which a proportion of borrowed books and other items are never returned, I never lend books which I would like to keep. I will only lend a book if I'm prepared to say goodbye to it, and release it into the wild , so to speak. That way I don't feel upset if I don't get back, and pleasantly surprised if it is returned.
I have to agree with Jaycee, I only lend books that I'm prepared to lose. That means I try not to lend anything that was a gift or is a hardback or is a book that I really, really love. When (if) they come back I can be secretly pleased.
I am glad it's not just me that hates to lend books, I feel really mean.
What will probably happen is I will lend her the book and she'll return it in two weeks and make me feel very guilty for a)having doubted her and b)still not having returned The Master!
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