What's a body to do?

Just went looking on my bookshelf for an old, well-loved book that I have a hankering to re-read, but to my dismay I can't find it!!! Most of the others in the series are there where they should be, the odd-sized ones are further down on the shelf with the "unwieldy" books, but the particular one I have a longing to read is missing, lost-in-action, not to be found, poof disappeared, and I'm feeling rather bereft.

Am just about to toddle off to Amazon to re-order it (& if my original turns up sometime, then I'll have two to dip into in the future, won't I?). Not only do I want to re-order it, I even want to find the self-same version as the one that's currently in hiding, and preferably second-hand. It wouldn't feel right to have a brand-spanking-new version sitting in the middle of the set that are about 20 years old, now, would it?. Not very smart I know, but there you have it.

It got me to wondering (this is not the first time I have re-bought a treasured tome), are there (any/many) others out there who would do as I do, or am I a totally lost cause?

I find I often lend a book which is not returned and I don't remember who I lent it to.
Having said that my third copy of 'Mrs. Mike' went out the door yesterday. I really hope I can remember who has it.

Why not name it here Toni? Someone might have a well used and unwanted copy? What is that escaped?

I thought that was what had happened to me - so many books missing, can't find them anywhere - until I helped my son move. He's almost completely gone over to audiobooks and ebooks, so he had a couple of boxes of print books to donate to Goodwill. I thought I'd take a look in case there was anything there I wanted.....a good twenty books that he'd stolen from his parents' shelves years ago, the brat. And he was going to just give them away!

This particular one is a fantasy novel from my favourite contemporary urban fantasy-fiction author, Charles de Lint, called "Moonheart". Not a mainstream request and most people with it are likely to want to hold onto their copy

NO matter, It's a perfect opportunity to throw in a couple of other treat-reads that I've had in my basket for a little while now (The Cone Gatherers, Mc Cullogh's "Rome" series, Beneath a Scarlet Sky, Ravensbrück: Life and Death in Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women ... amongst others). In the "nostalgic" basket I even have one or two of the Mary Poppins series that I loved as a child that I want to revisit.

By the time I check out my basket I suspect my purse is going to be a looooot lighter!

Haha I suspect I was that "brat" in that I know for a fact several rare books from my parent's shelves seem to be lurking on my own now. In my defense, they do get a regular airing...

Anybody know where I could get my hands on "Stirabout Lane" by John D Sheridan?

Timothy Dan
Is a very rich man,
And he keeps all his wealth in his pockets:
Four buttons, a box,
The keys of two clocks,
And the chain of his grandmother Margaret’s locket.
A big piece of string
(It’s a most useful thing),
A watch without hands,
And three rubber bands,
Five glassy marbles,
Some tail-ends of chalk,
A squeaker that once
Made a golliwog talk,
A broken-down penknife
With only one blade,
And a little toy boat
That his grandfather made.

You’d never believe
(Hearing such a long list)
That there’s room in each pocket
For one little fist;
You’d never believe
That the smallest of boys
Could carry so much
In his wee corduroys.

(and that's all I know of John D Sheridan!)

He often reminds me of R L Stephenson in his poems. Can't leave you knowing only Timothy Dan, here's another "Dan" of John D.'s, "Dan the Watchman"

Dan the Watchman
Doesn’t go to bed
He sits in a little wooden hut
Instead;
At a little coke-fire,
Half red, half blue,
Listening to the owls
Go “Whoo! Whoo! Whoo!”
And the Town clock
Strike half-past two.

When the moon sits on top
Of the grey church spire,
He piles more coke
On his red-and-blue fire;
When the old mill pond
Begins to freeze,
He eats his supper of bread-and-cheese.

I’d like to go out
In the middle of the night,
When the little coke-fire
Is shining bright,
When the flames burn blue,
And the flames burn red,
And everyone else in the world is in bed.

Then I’d sit in the little wooden hut with Dan,
And drink strong tea from his black billycan

I liked his short stories and essays best, mind you. Not unlike the style of James Herriot's works.

But to me it's a unique style. I like it. Thanks

He has nice rythms in his writing, even his prose and his essays showcase it well. He also has a knack of relating the everyday with humour and quite a bit of insight, AND he lived in a suburb of Dublin about 10km from my childhood home, so I have a little local pride in him to boot.