Musing Monday

Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about lending books...

A few weeks back we had a question about borrowing books, this week I was wondering what your policy was on lending books. Do you lend books to anyone? Just friends? Only big readers? How long are they allowed to have them?

For the most part, I'm fairly laid-back when it comes to loaning out my books. Typically, I only loan to family and close friends. As a rule, I don't loan books to people I work with. I don't normally have a time limit for people to return books, so I try to keep a list of who has what book.

All the books I loan out have a bookplate with my name and address. My thinking is this will make it easier for the loanee to remember to return the book.

Like most other people, I have lent books in the past which never got returned. The friend from work who borrowed the first 3 Left Behind books - she quit her job and never returned the books. I called her several times, but to no avail.

Because I categorize my books into 2 groups - books I will keep forever and review copies I don't necessarily want to keep, I usually tell the loanee which category a book is in. I also remind the loanee not to mark in my books or dog-ear the pages - I hate when people dog-ear the pages of books!

Of course, I do have a few books that I will not loan out to anyone. First edition copies of older books and books I have had personally autographed. These types of books hold a place of honor in my home library, so I keep them close to me - I don't want to take the chance they won't be returned or that they may become damaged.