Lending books

I love to read books. And I can’t seem to stop myself from flaunting about the magnificence of the books I read. For some strange reason with a general enquiry of the book I insist that they should take the book and read it for themselves.

And in almost all cases it so happens that the book starts collecting dust at their place instead of mine. I do not understand my fetish of having my books with myself; I don’t even re-read the books anyway.

Sometimes it so happens I end up giving people calls to ask how far they have gone about reading the book, instead of asking how they are. As if that is not clue enough that I want my book back, they in most cases don’t return it unless explicitly asked for “multiple” times. Sometimes you listen to a dreaded response that they have re-lent the book to someone else.

And when the book is returned it is underlined along with either coffee stains or with rumples due to water, and definitely has dog ears (as my friend affectionately calls it). After the entire circus to get back the book, I don’t feel like the owner of the book.

I am not claiming I am any better either I do the same at times, because of my obsession for books. But I swear I am changing I am returning books one after another, because it is a difficult fixation to get over.

Someone beautifully sums up the ordeal of lending a book, quote “Summer vacation is a time for reading, and my friends come to me to borrow books because I have more than most people. In their limited wisdom, they have no idea of what I go through in lending a book. They don't understand that I think of myself as offering them love, truth, beauty, wisdom. Nor do they suspect that I feel about lending a book the way most fathers feel about their daughters living with a man out of wedlock” unquote