Sunday Salon: Lose a book

Am I the only one? Have you ever lost a book, knowing full well that you've never taken it out of your house, searching the stacks and all of the logical areas it could be and then even searching the illogical areas? You'd think I would never have this happen since I am meticulous about alphabetizing my books by author, seperating them by physical type. So finding a book at my house should be easy, peasy, lemon squeezy. And yet it's not. There are, of course, the books that I swear have been awol since one of our moves. And their absence in my stacks makes me angry. But I don't think I misplaced them myself. The misplaced by self books make me completely and totally crazy. They can inspire multiple hunts and second guessing of my alphabetical skills as I scan the shelves around where said book should be with rising levels of frustration and dread. If not here, where?

This is a whole different level of losing a book than that of setting one down, walking off, and then having to do circuits through my house trying to remember which table or counter or stack I balanced the book on top of. I do this type of losing as well, of course. But how do books seemingly wander off if they have been properly filed? I suspect librarians feel this sort of pain a lot. But then they have to let the public monkey around with their collections and I don't. I'm the only one to blame if a book has gone walkabout. And I can't get the titles of the books I can no longer locate out of my head. The fact of their disappearances pops into my head at random times and I sometimes come up with one more place to look or am driven to look in exactly the same places I have looked before. Maybe I filed it under the author's first name by accident. Maybe I transposed two letters of the author's last name, moving it to another shelf alphabetically. Maybe my copy is actually a hardback even though I am pretty certain it's a trade paperback.

And I usually find the book eventually. Oftentimes in the exact place I had looked countless times before. How on earth does that even happen? It almost makes me believe that books act like the toys in Toy Story, coming to life and galivanting around to visit friends and having their own, unscripted adventures. Just how fun would that be? Don Quixote could tilt at some interesting stuff in my house. No windmills, but I'm sure he could find other things to try and conquer. Or maybe he's found a new girlfriend in one of the chick lit books and they sneak off to canoodle when my back is turned. One can only imagine the possibilities given the odd mixture of volumes on my shelves.

Yes, I am just a tad obsessive compulsive about my books. But I can't be the only one can I? Oh, and the latest book that disappeared for months just surfaced this past week, balanced precariously on the top of a stack right next to my desk. I should probably read it soon before it wanders off again.