So Randall Munroe. Can Science Give Me A Solution To Stopping Someone Mauling My/YOUR Book?

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

So picture the scene. I'm at work. As regular readers will tell know, I bring a book with me to read during the breaks. On this particular day that book turns out to be What If? by Randall Munroe. One of the books borrowed from Sully library. A tome which gives "Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions" such as "Is there enough energy to move the entire current human population off-planet?"

Anyway there's a moment when I have to go outside for a few minutes so leave that book out of sight and do what I have to do.

On returning to work however I see a sight that set all readers on edge. My work colleague for the day is just sitting there with the book in her hands!

It's my book! Oh alright not my book. But I'm it's custodian for a while. Not her. Moving the pages as if it's her's

So there she stands and starts to chat about Mr Munroe's work.

"It's a good book" she says. Implies that it's been read....by her.

But I think she's lying. Why? Because of the way it's being examined. The way she's looking at it, as if for the first time. If I see something that I've read before then unless the pages of this edition are embossed with gold and the illustrations have been done by Leonardo De Vinci then it's ignored. You don't see a book you've read in a bookshop and say "I'll just reread one of my favourite passages as I'm passing". You're after something new.

But there she is, reading it, turning the page without a care. Well certainly not caring about me anyway.

Feel like shouting "give me back my book!" But of course I don't. It's a reader thing. As if in a literary way she's breaking and entering to somewhere I'm currently living in.

It is however a workplace environment. Diplomacy means I have to stay quiet. After all one day she might be my boss.

Eventually work calls her to put the book aside...not where I'd left it in the first place....instantly the book's in my workbag.

So Mr Munroe. Is there a scientific way you can stop someone from mauling your book (literally here your book) at work without risking your job? I think I speak for all readers that this is an important issue.

Until the next time