Multiple copies of books... of course I have them!

[fajrdrako]

From Booking Through Thursday:

1. Do you have multiple copies of any of your books?
2. If so, why? Absent-mindedness? You love them that much? First Editions for the shelf, but paperbacks to read?
3. If not, why not? Not enough space? Not enough money? Too sensible to do something so foolish?!

1. I have multiple copies of some of my favourite books.
2. Never because of absent-mindedness; I know what books I have. Usually because I love them that much. Sometimes I want reading copies (that I can wear out) and good copies to keep. Sometimes I want lending copies. I only have multiple copies of books by a few of my very favourite authors; specifically, Dorothy Dunnett, Lois McMaster Bujold, Karin Lowachee and J.R.R. Tolkien. In the case of Tolkien, I have collected different editions, to get good covers and bindings.
3. I don't have enough space for multiple copies of other things, or money enough to buy a lot of multiple copies. So I am selective in the process.

Comments

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

my cases of multiple editions are all translations. Usually I get a Dutch translation and then later get myself the original. In some cases I have the original (German, Elias Canetti autobiography, Lou Andreas Salomé's autobiography) and I am still on the look out for an affordable translation into either Dutch or English.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Good answer -I didn't even think of translations. I have Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in both Latin and English, Winnie-the-Pooh in English, French, Latin and German, the Return of the King in English and Esperanto, Asterix the Gaul in English, Welsh, French, Latin, and Esperanto, and so on... I have The Little Prince in English and Latin but I don't think I have it any more in the original French. So it goes!

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I sometimes have multiple editions of things if there are differences in text and/or illustrations. I have a multiple editions of Anthony Hope novels because of different illustrators. I even have (squirms to think of it!) the UK and US eds of Graham Shelby's Kings of Vain Intent because he added even more gratuitous nastiness about my darling in the US edition…

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, there are things I'd get different editions of, if the different editions exist. I don't know if there are any books so far where I've actually done that, though. I've read some of the Dunnett books in French or Italian, but I didn't buy the translations, I got them out of the library.