Saturday, March 15, 2008

Lending Books

The limiting factor in how much I read is not money—books are cheap, probably cheaper than they've ever been (though I wonder how long they will remain so with the advent of electronic reading technology). Rather, how much—and what—I read is limited by time. The job I have now forces me to read quite a bit, though the books are not always the ones that I would choose. I do not have much time for "free-reading," though. Which brings me to my point: I really don't like it when people foist books on me, when they say, "Why don't you borrow this?"


I currently have at least 5 books that people have lent me. I will probably read one of them. The truth is that I have a stack of books that I would like to read and a stack of books that I *have* to read. Finding time for another book is not really an option.

I have never, except in one case, had the heart to say no. This is in part because I'm terrible at saying no, and in part because I don't want to insult the other person's taste (your favorite book is not worth my time.)

Asking to borrow a book is another matter, but now I think I would rather just buy the book myself so that I can underline in it and make notes.

5 comments:

David said...

I currently have three books that were lent to me that I will never read.

David said...

The above comment was made by me. Apparently, someone has gotten into a habit of signing himself in and not logging out on my computer. I may do something obnoxious with this power next time, but for now I'll be gracious.

David said...

This is Miriam, and I can't get my freaking mac to freaking realize that this is ME. I've already tried several times to rid myself of freaking David Scudder's blogger identity and thought I was successful.

Miriam said...

Haha! Did it! Another housemate had signed into yahoo, so I had to logout of about three different things before blogger would accept me...

dw said...

Fine. Give me back the book, ok?

dw