I am being thwarted by books

which is bad for a librarian.

The first is Jim Butcher's Blood Rites. I had it last Saturday at work and had read the first few pages (a thoroughly entertaining vignette of trying to save a box of puppies from daemonic entities that throw napalm-like excrement, something right out of a Cthulhu game, I could imagine), but I have not seen it since. It is not at work. It is not in the co-worker's car who gave me a ride home. (I've had both him check and checked myself tonight.) But I can't find it at home (it's easy to camouflage a book in my house; there are teeming hoardes, thousands of books in my house). I've checked the bags I was carrying. I've cleaned the landing spot that is also known as a loveseat. I've searched in various places to no avail.

Now, usually, I'd be somewhat annoyed and just wait for the house to give back the book. But this is a *library book*, with 20 days left on loan. I have only once had to replace a library book, one that I didn't actually lose but returned to the high school library only to have it disappear, and since it was checked out in my name, I had to pay for it. I have kept many library books over their appointed time, and racked up horrible fines, but I have never actually lost a library book. So if I seem frantic, I have good reason.

The other book is Runes of the Earth by Stephen R Donaldson. It was a book I was expecting from the PaperbackSwap people, but it never came. Whilst cleaning the couch and looking for the Butcher book, I came across a notice that had nestled in a piece of junk mail of an attempted delivery for said book, with a final date to be sent back to the sender of the next day--something I obviously missed. Even if I'd seen the notice, it's a bus ride across town to that post office, plus several blocks walking, which would have hurt my feet, but I would have done it had I known it was sitting there. They apparently had kept it for two months without me knowing it was there. So sadly, I will not get the book and it was an exercise in futility for the sender. But I have learnt two things: 1) Do not request delivery confirmation for any book I send out, and 2) change my receiving address to my work address, as I am almost never home during delivery hours and have little hope of getting such a package. At least at work someone will be there to receive it, and it will just be put in my mailbox.

I have not given up looking for the Butcher book. It's only a paperback, but I really don't want to have to pay for it. It is a horrible crime for a librarian to actually lose a book. So I hope the house decides to give it back soon, with the tidal flow that is my stuff.