I never loan books to anyone!

I love the Better homes and Gardens complete guide to quilting, use it all the time, so a short term loan would be ok. In a fire the dogs would be my first priority if the children were not home. Otherwise it would be the 5 year old twins that have turned our lives upside down. In a good way!!!

Not sure why you are asking the question, but I have learned not to loan anything I want back. In a fire, I would not care about ANY book, as most can be replaced. Safety for people and pets first.

My experience with loaning books has not been good: between them not being returned and me forgetting who I lent the books to or being totally ruined by the lender spilling coffee all over the book (that was signed by a deceased author), I find that I am the only one that respects my books. So now I make it a policy to not lend them to anyone.

Question #2: Assuming that everyone and pets are already out safely, there is really is no one book that I would treasure enough to take with me. I have many books and with my filing system, or the lack of it, I would probably burn up in the fire before I found the one book to take with me.

My question to you is, are you trying to find the one book that everyone loves and uses as a reference book?

I have learned to write down a book/magazine I loan out and to whom I loaned it to it has happened to me that as time goes by, it doesn't get returned and you forget who you loaned it to - it happens, at least to me.