pedanther

One of the reasons I recently moved into a larger house was so that I could get my books out of storage and onto bookshelves, or at least sort them into "To Read", "Have Read", and "Don't Want Any More".

A significant proportion of the growing "Don't Want Any More" set is turning out to be duplicate copies -- in some cases multiple duplicate copies, which happen like this: There is a book I really want, so I make a mental note to look out for it whenever I'm in a bookshop. Eventually I find a copy, and buy it. Some time later, in another bookshop, I see another copy, and because I remember that I was looking for it, I buy that as well. Having all the books in storage makes it worse, because the first copy gets forgotten easier when I'm not seeing it on a shelf every day, and when I get home with my new second copy, I don't immediately discover that it's a duplicate.

Yesterday, while I was browsing at the Boulder markets, I found a paperback copy of James Clavell's novel Tai-Pan. This time I remembered that I already owned a copy, but as the copy I remembered was a big unwieldy two-volume large-print edition I picked up in a library discard sale, I decided to buy the paperback anyway.

When I got home, I went to put it on the To-Read Bookshelf, and discovered a copy already there -- and not the two-volume large-print edition, which is still in storage, but another paperback.

In the evening, unpacking a box of books I'd got out of storage, I found two more copies. (Yet another paperback, and a large (but not large-print) hardcover edition.) That makes a total of four copies of Tai-Pan, not counting the still-absent large-print edition...