Discussion Time: Lending people books

Hey bookworms, I realized I haven’t done a discussion post in a while, so I decided to bring up something that I personally struggle with: lending people my books. I don’t know about you, but I am very protective of my books. I carefully care for them and usually only trust myself to read them. Now to those of you that aren’t like this I probably sound like a crazy person, but you have to understand that I have usually paid good money for these books, and especially when they are book I loved, they feel like treasured possessions.

       

Now on the other hand, I love when people ask me for book recommendations, and I love to share books that I really enjoyed with others. So I become very conflicted, do I lend them my book and let go of my protectiveness or do I ignore the part of me that loves to share my favourite stories with others? I have had several bad experiences were I lended someone a book and they never returned it, or returned it bent and stained, or once my friend gave me a library book back and tried to pretend it was the book I had given her.

In the end I think my desire to push books I personally loved on my friends overrides the overprotectiveness I feel about my books. There is nothing better than lending your favourite book to you friend and seeing them start to love it too!

On a last note I will add that on the other side of things, I also rarely borrow books from others. Mostly because if I love the book then I am forced to buy a book I have already read ( because yes, I am a weirdo and I need to own all my favourite books). The bottom line is that if I decide to lend you one of my books it is my way of saying that I trust you completely, unless of course any harm comes to the book (**cue evil villain laughter)

What are your thoughts? Do you like to lend others books, or borrow books yourself? let me know in the comments!