When you buy a book, you are in a sense committing to read that volume. If it sits on a bookshelf for too long (more than a year?), you feel guilty. The ambient questioning with a tinge of recriminations begin: "Why did I buy that book if I wasn't going to read it? Why am I so lazy? Why haven't I read that book yet? God, I don't read enough." My favorite is the perennial leftover thought from college: "Why are you so behind with your reading?" To avoid the self-directed psychological torture, you have to buy the books you know you will like. I even have a couple of friends who, for this very reason, only buy books they have already read (and liked).
You can be more loose when picking a book at the library. You can try a new author (some famous award winning author you haven't yet read), or a book you aren't sure you'll love (fiction you see in bookstores and best-selling lists). You can also read a book you kinda sorta wanna read but don't wanna buy (non-fiction books that you want to read but is still in hardcover). Finally, library is a great place for guilty pleasure reading (chick lit, for example). You have the option of stopping 50 pages in if the book is so very bleh. And ultimately you will purge yourself of the so-so books and the guilty pleasure reading books you didn't wanna own when you return the book. Though the purging feeling is great, having to make the trip is very annoying. Hence, one of the factors that go into borrowing a book from the library has to be portability. That explains why I have not finished the Harry Potter series (yes, I know the movie is coming out and hence the time is running out). The real danger with borrowing from the library, of course, is that you will find a book that you truly love, a real gem, and it'll hurt to part with the book. For example, Gilead. So despite the recession and all, I don't frequent the library that much.
Borrowing from friends' libraries is a bit different. More specifically, with friends, we are willing to take even greater risks than with the library books. We venture, not only into a new author's books, but a whole genre. Irrationally, we even delude ourselves into borrowing books we are pretty sure we won't really like that much, or a really long book that will take us more than this lifetime to read. Maybe she always talks about this book, maybe she has a book you've been hearing a lot about, or maybe she flaunts a book you know you should read but don't really really want to. Before you know it, you've asked to borrow it.
Then a whole new beast: the books they force on you. They bring the book over and say, "hey, borrow this book." Even worse, "you SHOULD read this book. I KNOW you'll love it." You protest politely saying, well, you just don't have enough time and you don't want to hold the book hostage. But alas, they even say you can take a while to read it. Okay, full disclosure: I have been guilty of springing books on people as well, most recently on Alice. But what can we do when, as Agatha Christie notes in "A Murder is Announced":
If anyone is determined to lend you a book, you never can get out of it.
Not to say I am not grateful for friends' libraries. Really. I have read some really great books at the insistence of earnest friends. And there's something really intimate about sharing books.
But the problem is with friends' books is similar to library books: they must be returned. And here we must carefully weigh the potential schism in friendship over the potential boost in friendship from sharing. Let's face it: we tend not to return books. And nothing breeds resentment like not returning a book. That's a crime forever remembered. I myself had an internal list of books that never made their way back to me. And now I have an external list where I keep track of books lent. Never mind that I have books on my bookshelf that aren't mine. Perhaps it's not resentment. It's more like a thread of hope... that if you keep remembering the book and send it good thoughts, it'll find its way back to you.
Despite all the hassle and the risks, we continue to lend. We INSIST on lending. Confession: I want people to borrow my books. I don't want my books to get lonely and neglected. And I don't subscribe to the philosophy of keeping books in pristine conditions. I want to "break in" my books because the books that look "used" are unique. And really, I do think sharing books is a great sign of friendship. Hence I welcome people to borrow my books, write in them, and read them. Just (try to) remember to return them.
1 comment:
I must be lacking in the persuasion area of lending books. What I've found to work for me, though is to read books aloud together.
My after-college roommate had never read such classics as C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia and Corrie Ten Boom's The Hiding Place.
After much (unsuccessful) pestering, we came up with the idea of me reading the books aloud while she cooked dinner and washed dishes. It became a fun family tradition and we read many, many books that way.
The best part is that we were literally "on the same page" and could stop to discuss the story or whatever tangential ideas came to mind. I highly recommend it.
I got the idea from a prior boyfriend, who read aloud Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, with special effects sounds and character voices -- a wonderful bonding experience!
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