And, why do we do this to ourselves?
I have two copies of:
-
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
-
Small Island by Andrea Levy
-
Thinking Clearly by Jill Leblanc
These are due to integration between my partner’s books and my own.
-
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
-
No Logo by Naomi Klein
-
Island by Aldous Huxley
These are because they are some of my favourite books and, except for No Logo, I have one hardcover and one softcover edition.
Finds book at second hand shop > good book. Let’s get it. Get home to find the book already on my shelf.
I have no multiple copies, I’ve stopped collecting physical books and almost exclusively use my e- reader. Storing books is so space consuming I just can’t justify it anymore. The only hardcopies I own at this point are gifts from other people that I held on to for that reason.
Story time! I bought “False Knees” because I love those comics. I love it in print, I read it frequently and it’s one of my favourite books. I made the mistake of lending it to a family member. A week later I ask for it back, and it’s missing of course. Months of asking for it back. I even search their house for them. Eventually I give up and buy a replacement copy of the book, vowing never to lend a book again.
Months later, at Christmas, I get a suspiciously book shaped present. Oh boy, I love books! I wonder what it is?! … My Christmas present this year was the book I lent to them, they finally found it. I was so disappointed it actually ruined Christmas for me, I had finally forgotten and forgave them for losing it, and all those negative feelings came rushing back. As a “side gag present but for reals here’s your actual present”, sure, but there was no other present. My present was, “now I have two false knees”, which I suppose makes sense anatomically at least.
I have multiple copies of Cloud Atlas because I let it out not expecting to get it back but people returned it.
Also you should read Cloud Atlas.
I’d have to look, but I’m pretty sure I have 3 sets of the Lord of the Rings?
🤔
Used to be 4, I had a set of crappy paperbacks and wanted something nicer, so I bought the “Millennium Edition”:
Which LOOKS great, but the paper is EVEN WORSE than the crappy paperbacks.
For years I looked around for the red hardback edition which was out of print. One would pop up every now and then, but would be damaged or written in or something.
Finally scored a clean copy of that, donated the crappy paperbacks to my little free library, kept the Millennium Edition because it is so very, very, pretty.
And then they came out with an illustrated edition with Tolkien’s own illustrations…
Fine.
I have three copies of I Kill Giants, because every time they release a new edition I buy it again.
It’s a really, really good book.
I have a one book edition of The Lord of the Rings I bought over 20 years ago. Reading it can be uncomfortable for my hands, being a fairly hefty book and not the easiest to hold. To remedy this, I bought another edition that’s divided into three books and also includes The Hobbit, just so it’d be easier for me to read. But because I’m a sentimental dumbass, I still occasionally pick up the older edition I’ve read many times, because I have affection for it. I love the green cover with a nice painting of Gandalf. Other than that, I don’t think I have any book with multiple copies.
- The Princess Bride: someone close gifted me the paperback without realizing I already had the hardcover, and I don’t have the heart to give it away.
- The Return of the King, because I grew up with a secondhand mishmash of editions. Over the years I’ve collected one full matching set, but kept the second RotK because it has a foldout map.
- The Odyssey: the translation I had for college, plus a different translation I was given (haven’t read it; not sure how different it is).
- Alice in Wonderland, although not sure this counts, since they’re in different collections.
I think only two now:
- The Hobbit - one large, illustrated edition but also my original paperback version, which I am loath to let go
- Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - both my wife and I are very fond of our individual copies.
I do have two versions of Plato’s Symposium, but one is in a volume along with the Karma Sutra, and another is with a couple of other Socratic dialogues, so not really the same book as such.
Ulysses. One copy in English, three copies in my native language. It has been historically translated by three different people, and the versions vary wildly from one another (and in one case, even from the source). It’s been one of the Joys (haha, get it?) of re-reading it so many times.
Man this book was hard for me. I feel like it motivated me to read so much more so that I can go back in 10 years and maybe understand the allusions/references.
My ebooks folder is backed up, so you might say all of them
I have two copies of Stephen King’s IT in hardcover. The first one is missing an entire signature around page 900 or so. I wrote to the publisher and they sent me a new one with all the pages.
Five or six paperbacks of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I’d pick up copies of the old Ballantine edition with the Blade Runner cover art by Drew Struzan (when you could still find them lying around for $2 or $3).
I have multiple copies of several books by Jack Vance, including Tales of the Dying Earth, Araminta Station, and a few of the Demon Princes and Planet of Adventure series. Old school SF is cool
House of Leaves
