Today’s Book Blogger Hop question is: Do you own more than one copy of a book?
Only a few. I don’t feel a need to own multiple copies of most books, since I only need one copy to read it. But there are a few where different copies have provided a different value. I don’t think the particular books I have multiples of will surprise anyone…
I have four copies of Gaston Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera–the cheap, paperback, bad translation copy I bought first and highlighted all over; the fancy, annotated, good translation copy; the French copy, just…because; and the illustrated copy because illustrations!
I also have a paperback Anne of Green Gables that’s part of a full set, and a 1914, “thirty-eighth impression” hardback, in the style of the first edition. I have several of L. M. Montgomery’s books as both paper and audiobooks, because I wanted to listen to them on audio and the library, alas, let me down on that score.
I have a complete Sherlock Holmes collection, and a paperback of Hound of the Baskervilles (my favorite, and easier to carry). I also have a volume of Shakespeare’s complete plays, and a dozen or so individual plays as paperbacks (easier to carry, and better footnotes–actually, sidenotes, as I like the Folgers editions). I have two copies of Walden–I inherited one I’m keeping for sentimental reasons, and also keeping the one I had already done all my underlining in.
And I think that’s it for duplicates! All the other 700 or so books on my shelves are individual. Do you keep multiple copies of the same book? If you don’t usually, what reasons would lead you to?
I have a ton of copies of Les Mis, haha. I have at least one of each widely available English translation (I think there are about seven). Some multiples of the same translation… I got one with the movie tie-in cover (even though it’s Denny translation-ugh) and some in both paper and hardback. I have a really short one in French that has a little French guide at the back. Then I have a bunch that I got from used book sites and keep on my shelf at work, some whole and some abridged. There’s one that my mom gave me from the school library where she works… they were about to throw it out, but she saved it and gave it to me. It is so grody… has stains all over and gum stuck in between the pages. I’m afraid to touch it. When anyone at work asks me about them, I tell them how good it is and offer to let them borrow one. It’s a Les Mis lending library! But nobody has ever taken me up on the offer. 😦
I love that you have a Les Mis lending library 😀 Your coworkers are missing out!
Like Lynn, mostly it’s when I forgot (or discovered) I already had it. That includes ebooks I’ve bought but then realised it’s on the shelf. Occasionally I’ll get an ebook and paperback deliberately, because I like reading books in my armchair under a good light, and ebook s everywhere else (including the armchair).
But then your Phantom story reminded me that I too have foreign language copies of… the Harry Potter series! I don’t think I could read the French ones if I didn’t know the story (or its about horses, which is another thing entirely) and I couldn’t have read the two German ones (3&4, in case you wondered) without knowing pretty much what every paragraph was. Schoolboy German is beyond me.
I tried Pride & Prejudice in French, but it was beyond me. But they are good for rustling up the dregs of my French if I’m off to France for any reason.
The only book of which I have multiple copies is the Bible, and I’m not sure that even counts since translations can be so different. I have several different biographies of St. Francis of Assisi, but they are distinctly different books by different authors, though they all cover the same ground, just in different ways. So the short answer for me is “no.” 🙂
I don’t own multiple copies of most books, the exception beting The Hobbit (paperback and illustrated). The other duplications were simple mistakes where I bought the same book more than once – either because I forgot I had a copy on my shelves or the covers had changed and I hadn’t recognised the book for some reason.
Lynn 😀