Lending a Book, a Heartfelt Affair

We all know the feeling – you’ve just finished an incredible book, and it’s all you can think about. Your immediate reaction is to share it with everyone you know, so you can talk about it with someone. ‘You absolutely must read this book,’ you say. ‘I can lend it to you!’

And so begin the emotional stages of lending someone a book:

Stage 1: Apprehension

You’re handing the book over, and you suddenly realise – anything could happen to your book. What if your friend dog-ears their pages instead of using a bookmark? What if they spill coffee all over the cover? What if their dog chews it to smithereens?

A small wave of panic begins.

Stage 2: Separation Anxiety

Despite having finished the book, you miss having it around. You miss seeing it resting on your bedside table, miss the familiarity of the cover, the comforting feeling of its presence in your life. You feel suddenly lonely, abandoned, betrayed. The grieving begins.

Stage 3: Self-Consciousness

It’s been a couple of days now, and your friend hasn’t messaged to say ‘wow, this book is amazing!’ Maybe they haven’t even started reading it yet? But your irrational mind takes over – what if the book isn’t actually all that good? Have you over-rated it? Was it just a response born of a mood or moment in your life? Will they ever trust your recommendations ever again?

Regret is a terrible thing.

Stage 4: Jealousy

After a week your good taste in books is confirmed by your friend who has told you that they are absolutely loving the book. You secretly resent your friend for being able to experience the book for the first time. You wish you could time travel and go back to the moment you turned the first page. You try to be happy for your friend, to support their reading journey.

Go away, green-eyed monster!

Stage 5: Self Control

Your friend is taking their sweet time with this book, and it is taking every ounce of strength you have, to not reveal too much of the plot or give too much away. This proves to be difficult when they are talking to you about characters and events BEFORE the life-changing climax of the novel. All you can do is bite your tongue, and patiently wait.

Tick, tick, tick, goes the clock.

Stage 6: The Debrief

Arguably, the most joyous stage of the book-lending process. Your friend has officially finished the book, and the two of you are now catching up over a cup of tea or a vino, to debrief and discuss. It’s like a mini book club, and it’s the moment you’ve been waiting for: you can finally reveal all, talk about the twists and turns and share all the juicy details.

Purr, purr.

Stage 7: Terror

This feeling of elation is always destroyed however, by the moment when the book is finally handed back to you. It’s a tense moment – you must subtly try to inspect the book to see if it is has been well looked after. You scan the cover, pages, spine, for marks or stains, any evidence of reckless abandonment. This can end one of two ways – the book is good as new, and your friendship remains the same as it has always been – or, the book has been tainted, blemished, mistreated beyond repair, in which case you vow to never lend another book to said ‘friend.’

Regret is indeed a terrible thing.