Book Pet Peeves #8: Book Borrowing

August 20, 2014     erinbook     Feature, Pet Peeves

#8 Book Borrowing
 
I think we all have a bit of today’s pet peeve inside us to some extent. On one hand I love sharing my favorite books with people. I want them to experience the same feelings I did when I read a certain book, I want to be able to talk about and analyze the book with them. What I don’t want is to give them one of my favorite books and have it returned to me half destroyed.
The thing about letting people borrow your books is that, if they aren’t book people the way you are, then they probably don’t treat books as kindly and reverently as you do. Here’s a few of the things I’ve seen non people do to books that don’t belong to them.
1. Bending the cover of a paperback all the way around the back of the book.
2. Eating Cheetos and turning pages with the same hand.
3. Using a book to shield themselves from the rain.
4. Spill coffee all over a new book and shrugging it off.
5. Dog earring the pages.
6. Shoving a book haphazardly into an already full backpack, after all who cares about the state of the dust jacket?
7. Leaving book upside down and open on a flat surface for days on end.
If you cringed at any of these then your probably have this pet peeve.There’s also that group of people that have a ton of books that don’t belong to them because they never give them back. I bought my books because I wanted to have copies for myself, if I don’t get that copy back then I’m not going to be happy.

Because of this I have instituted a borrowing policy. I only lend my books to people I trust with them, which is a list of about 4 people. If something happens to my book I expect it to be replaced. Luckily, the people I lend to now treat my books with respect, just as I do. For that, I thank them and will continue to lend them books as long as they take care of them.

What are your book pet peeves?
Keep Reading!

4 responses to “Book Pet Peeves #8: Book Borrowing

  1. These make me feel so STABBY! I have a really hard time lending books, so I usually pick up extra copies to lend out (when I can afford to). Otherwise, I'd have to have a contract with stipulations for book abuse. 🙂

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.