/lit/ - Literature

>>4948769
>You guys lent any of your books to friends recently?
Never.

>implying i have friends that read

>>4948775
>>4948771
Well you should be a bit more social with people or at the very least get your friends interested in reading!

shit this is a good place to post this

>lend friend my copy of catcher in the rye last year
>(he's a beatles fan and apparently he read that the killer listed it as the reason he shot lenin)
>he hands it back a month later
>put it back on shelf
>decide to re read it recently
>he'd highlighted all the potential lines that inspired him to want to kill someone and penciled in various notes

I don't even keep in contact with the dude anymore so I can't even get mad at him Why would you do that with a borrowed book?

>>4948784
Social retardation mostly.

>>4948769
>lend my favourite hardcover copy of the quijote to friend
>returns with missing pages, cover nearly detached, wrinkled corners
>mfw he asks for my paperback copy of dorian gray

>>4948784
He's an asshole with no respect for other people's stuff of course

>>4948775
>implying I have friends

>>4948771
>not allowing others to experience the marvel of reading by sharing

pleb

Lent my friend a copy of The Maltese Falcon.

His rabbit chewed on it.

His rabbit actually touched it more than he did.

I no longer have a friend with a rabbit.

I lent a number of Orwell novels to my brother eight months ago. He's only read Animal Farm so far.

>Lent my friend my Thomas Mann Novella collection.
>He knocks on my door about 2 weeks later with a nervous look on his face.
>Think 'oh god here we go'
>Open door to him talking
>'Hey anon, really sorry about this, but I dropped your book when I was reading outside and I when I stood up I trampled it and ripped a huge section out'
>'Oh, well anyw-
>'-But I went online and couldn't find the specific collection you wanted so I bought a complete Thomas Mann collection (hardback).
So overall it was a net positive.

I used to, but they're generally too careless with my books. They're not cunts, they just treat them like they would their own books, which isn't the kind of standard that allows for a lot of rereading over the years.

Guys how do I accept being happy with lending and giving? I was an only child so I never learned to share, and I definitely struggle with it. I feel protective of my shit and it causes me self-loathing, it's like some ancient hebrew genetic has a gun to my head whenever the situation arises.

>>4948865
Sharing is overrated. If they wanted it so bad they'd buy it, fuck them.

I had lent so much books I now make a list

>lend best bud leatherbound copy of Dante's Inferno
>months pass
>I don't usually ask for books back but this one is special
>My dead dad gave it to me before leaving for Afghanistan
>He would never return
>"So, did you read the book?"
>"Oh sure Anon, I forgot. I'll bring it to you next time we see each other."
>fast forward to next time
>Leather binding has been grossly replaced with hard paper by his vegan girlfriend, the leather stapled to some cow in North Carolina
>EVERY footnote has been cropped with scissors
>Beautiful Doré illustrations have been painted with watercolor
>Dogears
>All the blank pages are missing
>Marbled inlays are now inexplicably pulp paper yellow
>Someone scrawled "Dante Alighieri" with a black pen and wrote "Dorkte Allegory" below
>Friend looks at me, a sincere smile on his face, as I look at the disaster that is my father's last gift
>He doesn't seem to understand what's happening
>Run away
>Years later, I see him begging on the streets and pretend not to see him

>>4948769
Yes a friend of mine has my copy of Oblomov around 8 months by now.


I guess he likes it.

I decided lending books was a horrible mistake a long time ago.

I lent some study guide to my brother once and received it with a small dog-eared cover. I learned an important lesson then which I have never forgotten (admittedly he treats everything, his or other people's possessions, like shit).

I don't have any friends any more but if I did I would never let my books out of my grasp.

>>4948890
I should add that books weren't the only things that I would receive back from people in a deteriorated condition. In my experience people have little respect for the things of others.

Why the fuck do people think it's okay to fucking bend the fuck out of somebody else's book that they're nice enough to let them borrow and treat it like fucking shit? Fuck my friends. Never lending another book in my lifetime.

>>4948881
I know I would have cried if I was you.

Reading this made me mad. What sick fucks those two people are.

>>4948769
Lent books never come back. Lost a copy of Gravity's Rainbow that way. Gained a copy of On the Genealogy of Morals that way. I justify if by telling myself that a dude who has a Blink-182 tattoo and doesn't have the presence of will to ask for a book back won't gain much from late Nietzsche.

>>4948793
you have to fucking TRY to decimate a hardcover book that bad.

Lending my possessions to others only makes me hate humanity. It disgusts me that people can be so careless with other people's borrowed things. My friend broke the pickups of my brand new guitar when I let him borrow it for a night, and he didn't even mention it or apologize when I brought it up. What the fuck. I got a book back that I lent full of highlights and comments and warped pages. How can somebody think that's acceptable?

Why would anybody think it's okay to do that? I'm getting legitimately pissed off reading these posts. So disgusting.

I lent my gf Franny and Zooey and On the Genealogy of Morals. She read Franny and Zooey but not Nietzsche. Nietzsche had cropped up in a conversation we had and she mentioned that read Beyond Good and Evil a few years ago and didn't get it, and I suggested that she read On the Genealogy of Morals if she was still interested as it was intended as a companion piece to Beyond Good Evil, and she said sure. I guess she only said so out of politeness. Franny and Zooey I just thought she'd like, and she did.

Just demand they pay for it it is returned damaged. That is absolutely inexcusable.

>>4948798
>implying I

I hate lending out books.
I don't buy them to become a local library.
If you want to lend books, you can go down town, get a library card and lend the thing for free.

Besides most of my mates are morons, sadly. I'm also Norwegian and the majority of the books I own are beyond the comprehension of most of them.

I think the only book I ever lent to someone was an old classmate which wanted to read 1984 after I told him it was pretty good.
He said he couldn't find it in any bookstore and they don't do special orders here--which is bullshit because I've had them order books for me several times. So I told him it was cool, as long as he didn't keep it for ages. "No worries anon, I'll be done in no time". six months later when I return to Norway, having been to france for 3 months, I ask him for the book back, and he goes "I only have like 100 pages left". The entire book is like 300 pages, he's read 2/3's in six fucking months.

I just told him someone else wanted to borrow it, and I needed it back by next week. It took him two weeks to get it back to me, and when I asked if he thought it was good, he said it was alright. With a certain indifference that made me think he hadn't read past the first chapter. He never get's any of my referances either, so I think he was just too ashamed to admit he hadn't been arsed to read it. I don't like rubbing it in his face so I just play dumb and pretend I believe him.

If anyone asks me to loan a book now I just tell them to go to the library, fucking leeches who can't get their own shit.

I don't even let other people touch my books.
Book touched by someone else = book damaged.

>>4949134
Oh, and his cat chewed the corner of it. The book was still perfectly readable, but I don't want a book with a chewed end sitting around in my shelves.
When I asked him about it, he told me like it was some funny story, and said "It's cool, he didn't ruin anything other than a bit of paper with no text on it", with a pat on my back.

People just see books as the words on a page, but to me the book itself holds aesthetic value.
When people can't respect that, it makes my blood boil.

Yeah. Notes from the Underground and It. He's an entry level pleb and I'm trying to gently shepherd him onto greener patrician pastures.

To regain hope for lenders, I recently was lent a first edition hardcover of blood meridian (extremely expensive) from my friends dad and returned it to him in the same condition he lent it to me in a timely fashion.

>>4948865
When you lend a book to a friend, in your mind think you're giving it away, that book is over.

Your friend may find it weird for you to say 'you can have it' so just pretend you're lending it.

Think you're gifting it. Who wants to re-read a sticky book your friend molested anyway, that is if he gives it back.

>>4949211
>he molested my book

As someone who takes great care of his books (even going as far to read paperbacks in way that wont crease the spine) you have to adopt the mindset in >>4949211

By attaching such value to books you are setting yourself up for disaster. I never lend any book out that I would be upset over if it was wrecked or not returned. Of course I learned this the hardway.

>Lend a friend (friend A) a penguin paperback of Lolita
>Doesnt states that he left it at his grandparents (made worse as his parents live in the same town) or lost it when he moved houses.
>Given him the benefit of the doubt it was only a penguin.
>Lend him another, which he proceeds to loose.
>Fair enough I wont lend him anything else.
>Lend a fellow bibliophile (friend B) a hardcover book on Taoism
>Friend B lends it to friend A
>Friend A somehow managed to loose it in a bar.
>Generally only lend to my father these days.

The problem of course is magnified as friend A and to a lesser extent B arent malicious but scatterbrained and don't value books as much as I do.

I recently lent both Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov to my friend who is studying theology, and he's just about done with Crime and Punishment. He's super into it, I'm proud.

>>4948769
>lend friend collection of Camus' essays
>years pass
>forget about it
>suddenly remember
>"hey do you still have that book I lent you all those years ago?"
>"oh, yeah!"
>"can I... have it back?"
>"aw, give me a few weeks! I'm almost finished!"
>mfw she wasn't kidding

>>4949325
Consider that they were a collection of essays. It's pretty easy to read and few and then move on to something else, come back and read another, move on etc.

>>4949339
I suppose. My philosophy when borrowing books, however, is to treat the lender like a library, and return the book by the time it would be "due".

Also, on a somewhat unrelated note, does anyone else prefer an old, beat-up, paperback over a fresh hardcover? I never mind getting my paperbacks a little roughed up. I think it adds character. That said, I would never treat a lent book like anything less than an original Picasso.

>>4949376
Yes, damaging someone else's book shows an obvious lack of respect for the lender. That people can't "get" that makes me sick.

It's been almost two years since I last saw the copy of The Complete Works of John of the Cross, a Spanish mystical poet.

After about a year it hit me I should never lend books.

People are begging me for my Hubert Selby collection as well but that's not happening.

I will never lend books to anyone ever, mostly because of PTSD from seeing my dad's shelves.

RIP spines

My gf has about 1/3rd of my collection

>>4949376

In order to spare myself the grief, my philosophy is opposite: whenever I give a friend a book I treat it as a gift- I have no expectation of getting it back. They can give it back if they want, but don't have to. I make sure to tell them that.

If the book is so important to me that I can't live with that, I just don't lend it. I have pretty good peace of mind about it, this way.

just lent out crime and punishment and blood meridian to friends the other day
another guy has copy of communist manifesto, keeping it for a while as reference in his studies of communism
also lent out lolita, friend is reading it right now
never had a bad experience lending books, have great friends
could be worse

>>4948769
I shared The Count of Monte Cristo once but he returned it shortly not having read it.
>tfw no friend to swap books with, and comment them when we see each other

>>4948769
Yes.

>>4949447
Read >>4949376 that post again, that person was not saying that was their lending philosophy (which is what you talked about) but their borrowing philosophy, which is completely reasonable and minimizes grief for all parties.

I lent 3 comics to a buddy but never saw them again so I stopped.

Excepted to my girlfriend
I lent her some Lovecraft and the Story of the eye, and she liked.
>tfw she has a bigger bookshelf than me

That library is absolutely disgusting.

What's with this whole minimalist thing, it looks terrible and allows no sense of privacy or comfiness.

no because im not a fucking librarian

I lent the picture of dorian grey to a girl. Had to marry her to get it back. And she didn't even read.

1. I don´t have friends
2. Even if i did probably none of them would read

>>4948881
Wow, fuck that. Do you think he lost it and tried to replace it? Prolly not, but damn how can anyone be that much of an ass? And even if he was beggin on the streets, knowing this makes me think he probably had an apartment and was just begging for money.
I hope you get another copy, anon. Get yourself a really nice one and stick it to that fucker and not let your Dad's intentions go amiss.

Never lend out books unless you are also lent books of equal value. It's just common sense.

I don't know anyone who reads for fun, so I never lend out books.

Also, the stuff I have on my shelf is heavy fucken shit, not for the faint of heart.

>>4950274
Indeed, it looks like an empty but oppressive space where peace is unthinkable.

>>4948881
Russian proverb: "You show me who your friends are, and I'll tell you who you are"

If you have a best friend who would do that to any book, you're a stupid faggot who deserves to have his nice things destroyed.

>>4951927
Agreed, but wouldn't it be great if we could remake abandoned shopping malls as libraries or book warehouses, where people could just take and leave books?

Every time anyone wants to borrow a book I just put it back on the shelf and hope they forget by the time they're leaving. Can't stand the hole in the shelf and they will damage them anyway.

>be me
>know some younger friend for several months, know his mother, etc.
>lend expensive book to said friend
>one month pass
>"so, friend, did you like my book?"
>"i love it, but it's not finished yet"
>"no problem buddy"
>two months pass
>bump into friend in the street
>"so, did you finish the book?"
>"what book?"
>"the book i lent to you three months ago"
>"you never lent any book to me, leave me alone!"
>he begins to avoid me
>i never see him again
>tfw

>>4951947
There's tons of beached abandoned ships around. Why not use those?

>>4948769
the last books i've lent to friends are an anthology of poems by Saint John Perse and Descartes' Meditations. i'm sorry your friends are plebs

>>4952311
Sure, whatever works!

>lend my friend my hardcover Knopf edition of Independent People
>after a month I ask him if he's finished reading it yet
>he tells me that he has and that he'll give it back soon
>okay
>keep asking him every time we see each other in the halls thereafter
>each time he says he'll give it back the following day
>finally get so annoyed that I tell him I'll go to his house after school to take it back instead of having him bring the book to me
>he relents and says he'll give the book for certain the following day
>he returns the book to me the following day as I'm leaving
>it has a huge coffee stain at the corner
>he wrote his fucking name on the back of the front cover in pen
>the dust jacket's edges are scuffed
>the edition is out of print

Never lend your friends anything. If they need money, just give it to them. If they need a book, just buy them one for them.

>>4952401
just buy one for them.*

>>4952365
>being this pretentious

>>4948830
where can i find friends like that holy shit

Lent a friend The Hot Zone a couple weeks ago. Before that I loaned him Dmitri Martin's book.

Currently, myth of sisyphus to an acquaintance who's getting interested in existentialism in general, so i thought it might be a good intro
Then the rebel and crime and punishment to my best friend who was weaned on classics, Greek and roman and renaissance, but hasn't really dug into 19th century lit. Just got back beyond good and evil from him as he bought his own copy.

On a related note, I'm both overjoyed and pissed that stanford university press just came out with a scholarly edition of bgae and genealogy, so now i have to start ditching my penguin editions because though translations are decent the footnotes are heavily inconsistent, not as bad as his for even later nietz
Okay enough ranting time to sleep

>>4948881
top lel

Well, my friends are potheads so whenever I gave them a book there was a 25% chance to never get it back. Usually because they lent it to some other pothead who stopped communicating with the world, or simply because they don't know where it went and don't like to search for it.

>>4948905
>>4951916
The fuck is wrong with you, /lit/

I keep meaning to loan both my Kafka and Lovecraft to a friend, then forgetting to bring it to them. Currently borrowing the Last Unicorn from another friend.

I could probably just link the first friend to the stories on one of the websites, I think Kafka is on a few websites? I forget. But they're the type that prefers the physical book over everything, so :/

>>4953962
We have been friends since primary school, I just got lucky I suppose. I am going to have to buy him a great present for his birthday this year.