Joe Queenan's "Wish List: No More Books!"

i'm with him 100% - the (real life!) people i'll take book recommendations from are few. and accepting books that people have lent you (less so gifts) is pretty awkward. how long can you leave it on your shelf before you return it unread and then have to explain the fact you haven't read it. like Queenan my feeling about it have evolved from suspicion to downright hostility (by polite on the surface) when someone forces a book upon me. the problem is that i can think of less than 10 books i've enjoyed that have been lent or given to me by friends (and probably only 2 particular friends) compared to the hundreds i've loved that i've bought myself. it's got the the point where someone recommending me a book will be followed by the thought "i must remember to AVOID that..." i prefer to find my own way through the world of books with help from reviews, criticism, ILB (ha!) your own connections etc. and like Queenan says, i have an imaginary list of books to be read (it's always changing) and it the list doesn't have room for "The Life Of Pi", thanks very much.

em... that's so garbled it's practically unreadable, sorry.

second draft: haha

i'm with him 100%, the friends i'll take book recommendations from are few and accepting book loans (less so gifts) is pretty awkward. how long can you leave it on your shelf before you return it unread? how to explain the fact you haven't read it? like Queenan my feelings have evolved from suspicion to downright hostility (although hopefully polite on the surface) when someone forces a book upon me.

the problem is that i can think of less than 10 books i've enjoyed that have been lent or given to me by friends (and probably only 2 particular friends) compared to the hundreds i've loved that i've bought myself. it's got the the point where someone recommending me a book will be followed by the thought "i must remember to AVOID that..."

i prefer to find my own way through the world of books with help from reviews, criticism, ILB (ha!) my own connections and, like Queenan says, i have an imaginary list of books to be read (though it's always changing) and it that list doesn't have room for "The Life Of Pi", thanks very much.

I feel this way about all gifts, though.

I will say that, having received "She's Come Undone" in an online bookswap, I actually hunkered down and read it, and, you know, sometimes it feels good to have your assumptions about the world confirmed. Surely Queenan, of all people, would agree with that.

no one buys me books i don't ask for.

this line is funny:

You don't care about the poor Mayans unless you've read "1491" and its inevitable sequel, "1243."

Yeah, I totally feel the sentiment of this piece. Although sometimes I also think it's a burden to have this "I have IMPORTANT books to get to" feeling. Sometimes odd special-interest books or semi-junk history books turn out to be great reads. The bottom line is I'm a relatively slow reader, so if I'm not enjoying something I don't make time for it.

But sometimes I wish there were fewer books published at all, and that the standards were higher, so I didn't feel this pressure that if I don't learn the untold story of Mae West's make-up girl, there will be a missing piece in my understanding of our heritage.

Forced loans are often really useful for understanding someone even if you don't like them as much as something you'd choose yourself, though.

(that said I'm like 80% sure my mum's partner will genuinely really like the copy of Gilead I'm giving him! I'm like 60% sure he'll read it, too.)

i recommend Gilead to anyone (ahem) though i won't be lending it out in case i don't get it back. my favourite book of this year by some distance.

I don't borrow books, nor do I lend them. I don't lend them because I only rave about books I care about, and people don't give back books they borrow, so if I like you and I want you to read a book, I'll buy a copy as a present for you.
I don't borrow books either, and I really, really dislike people loaning me books that I didn't ask for. I have one friend who has been trying this on for years, so eventually I knuckled down, accepted a loan of a book from her and it has been sitting on my shelves for several years now, unread. In the beginning she would enquire about it and I would say I hadn't read it yet. Then, about a year ago, she started asking me for it back and I kept saying I would give it to her, but I haven't done so yet. I will, but I really want to teach her the lesson that you don't loan me books. It seems to be working so far.

"I will, but I really want to teach her the lesson that you don't loan me books. It seems to be working so far."

You are a treat!! hahaha, that is seriously priceless.

my longstanding policy for ANYTHING is: i won't lend anything to anyone that i can't afford to lose. that way i don't lose any sleep. if it's a book that i've read and have no attachment to and i probably won't read again, then i really don't care what happens to it. and if someone borrows a book that i can stand to lose i let them know that they are under no obligation to return it. if they do, fine.

accentmonkey on the monkey, I mean money.

With one or two exceptions, I don't mind lending books to my friends. Mostly they come back, but if they don't, well, they're only books. I've got too many anyway.

The exceptions are things which are very delicate and / or expensive and / or which will be difficult to replace if I'm dead keen to replace them. I don't have many books which fall into those categories.

Anyway, who needs friends when you have books? Right? Right?

Well, you could have friends over and look at the books on the shelf and talk about the ones you are thinking of getting around to reading in the near future- I know that's what I do.