On the book

I love libraries, and I love old books, and a lot of those library books are about long-lost loves coming back.

Dateline Helsinki, Finland, where a  book by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle came back to the Central Library just 84 years past its due date.

The Oodi Library reports that someone returned a Finnish translation of Doyle's historical novel Refugees. It was supposed to be back in the stacks on Dec. 26, 1939.

"Always better late than never," the library said. Heini Strand, the librarian, says no one had an explanation, but she figured that "these kinds of loans returned decades after the due date are books found when people go through deceased relatives' belongings." 

History buffs will recall that one month before that due date, the Soviet Union invaded Finland, so there's that. "The return of the book might not have been the first thing on the borrower's mind when the due date approached," Ms Strand said.

You know me well enough to predict that my theory is, the borrower just wasn't Finnished with the book yet.