Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Books That I Refuse to Let Anyone Touch. And yes, I definitely have some of these. My off-limits, NO YOU MAY NOT BORROW IT WHY DO YOU EVEN ASK books are all about the sentimental value. I’m not a book collector for the dollar value, and doubt that I have more than a handful of books that might actually be worth more than what I originally paid for them. The books that I guard and never, ever lend are ones that hold special meaning for me… and that I’d cry over if they ever got lost or damaged, or even *gasp* just a little dog-eared.

My top ten are:

1) Signed hardcover editions of The Sparrow and Children of God by Mary Doria Russell: The Sparrow is one of my all-time favorite books, and even though I had paperback copies, I jumped on these when I found them on EBay.

2) The thousand or so copies of Outlander books stacked up throughout my house: Call me crazy. I have hardcovers, anniversary editions, trade paperbacks, mass market paperbacks… multiple copies of every book in the Outlander series. And no, I don’t lend any of them.

3) Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill: I went to a book signing for Joe Hill’s first novel, back before he was quite as huge as he is now, and he was charming and all sorts of awesome. So I treasure this book. (It’s also scary AF.)

4) Graphic novels: I love all the graphic novels I’ve accumulated over the years, and since they’re all part of series, I don’t let any of them out of the house. Because I once did, and I ended up having to replace that volume when it got lost. (I’m still traumatized.)

5) Lamb by Christopher Moore: I have a very beat-up paperback edition of this book, but I really especially love my Bible-esque edition.

6) Everything Harry Potter: There are lots of sets of Harry Potter books in my house. Each of my kids has their own complete set, and I have mine — and mine are mine alone. I don’t share Harry Potter!

Wrapping up my list, it’s less about individual books and more about collections. I love these authors, and I love their books, and I keep my copies strictly to myself!

7) My Gail Carriger books (only some of which are pictured here):

8) My Patricia Briggs books (again, this isn’t all of them…)

9) Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant  — once again, my pictures don’t include all of my books by this author, but I do get to show off my gorgeous hardcovers from Subterranean Press.

And while I could go on, I’ll end with this one:

10) A really pretty illustrated edition of Pride and Prejudice, just because:

Do you lend your books? Do you have any that are off-limits? If you wrote a TTT post this week, please share your link!