Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Book Collecting

The Hobbit

It's probably not a surprise that a book blogger would collect books. When I was a kid I loved collecting books- I had a shelf of my favorite ones and boxes of books I had not even read yet. I'd go to used bookstores and buy a ton of books, and some I just never got to. I was also a big fan of cover art and would absolutely buy books for the cover, although it was usually one I wanted to read anyway. Nowadays I don't do that nearly as much, and with the advent of e- books I get a lot of my new reads that way.

Somewhere between college and moving and all that I lost or sold a lot of my old SF paperbacks, so those boxes of unread books are gone. Occasionally I'll be in a used bookstore and see one I had and I'm like "oh yeah, that one." But for the most part I buy new (or newer) books these days, not only because I'm blogging and reviewing but because there's so much good stuff now. I wanted to shine a light on actual book collecting though.

Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar (Tarzan, #5)

I collected a lot of older stuff. I also had certain cover artists I collected. The Tarzan covers by Neal Adams were faves and they all had the black covers, like the one above. There are 20- some Tarzan books and they look great all lined up on a shelf with the black spines. I didn't read them all, I just wanted the cover art and the black spines all lined up. Does anyone else do that? When I think back it's kind of amazing how many books I bought for that reason!

So... do you collect books? And what criteria do you use in determining what to collect?

27 comments:

  1. I collect books too.
    I own a sizeable stack of old pulp paperbacks that I bought for the covers alone and I'm planning to make a couple of shadow boxes to display them in on a rotating basis. None are in mint condition, so they probably are not worth much, but I like them for the art.
    A second collection consists of books that are beautiful as objects, either because of the covers or illustrations. These include some lovely hand-bound leater-covered volumes of folk tales, old novels with Art Nouveau covers, lovely art and photography books and illustrated versions of various classics.
    Lastly, I collect certain authors. I get antsy whenever I look at my collection of Terry Pratchett hardcover books because I haven't been able to get my hands on a hardback copy of Lords and Ladies with an intact dustcover (it may be time for me to visit ABE books once again and do a search).

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    1. I'm glad I'm not the only one who collects old books. Old pulp and SF paperbacks are great. And of course the true collectibles or ones that are jsut nice to have like your second category. I don't really collect certain authors, per se, but I used to and would have tons of paperbacks of favorite authors. Now I jump around more. :)

      Good luck finding that copy!

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  2. I went through a period of buying a ton of books in a local secondhand bookshop if I'd seen and liked the film. I ended up with a ton of utter crap that ended up in charity shops! Buying habits have changed now and that shop doesn't stock my kind of reads now-thankfully!

    I do regard myself as a collector-if I've read book one, I find myself binge buying the whole set, before I check out book two to see if the standard keeps up! Sometimes I do that when I haven't read the first book. My excuse is that some Indie books can quickly vanish from Amazon so I just have to get it NOW. Ahem. I'm always hunting out new authors in my favourite genres to grab even with a tbr out of control. I also got obsessive about different Harry Potter sets which I'm trying to part with to regain shelf space but it's not working so far. Basically if I see a book I want I MUST buy it right that minute! If a series I like comes out with better covers I do get twitchy and want to buy the new versions...I'm a bit OCD about matching covers and book sizes! So far I have restrained myself from buying beautiful books I don't want to read but that is more about lack of space!

    Hello, my name is Chuckles and I'm a bookaholic...

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    1. Yeah I think some of the books I had (and never got to) weren't very good! They might have been picked up just because I liked the cover. I'm with you though, if I am liking a book one I have been known to go and buy the rest of the series lol. I get burned that way sometimes but I know I'm not going to want to wait when I finish book one, so I better have book two all ready to go ha ha!

      Yeah delayed gratification and books don't really go together with me. I like finding new authors too...

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  3. Unfortunately I don't collect physical books anymore :( Big sad. I might start up again though as with a young child around it's always great to have wonderfully tantalising bookcases and there's a lot of cool books I'd love to have around for her (and myself!) as she grows up. There's something about reading off actual PAPER that makes something click differently in your brain, right?

    I have an issue with covers - if I am getting a series I need all the books to be of the same cover series too. And maybe a couple of versions, you know, just because! Like, the original Harry Potter books and then the Adult version covers... That would be cool.

    Some books have such nice covers that you don't even want to display the spines - so that's also going to require a bigger bookshelf!

    I'm in the midst of doing a new kitchen for our new house and it has gorgeous open shelf space so I'm already on the lookout for good looking recipe books (with good content too of course!).

    You've got me thinking again!

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    1. I think actual books are the best. I mean I like e- reading but there's something to having a collection, books you can pass down (like you said, you have a little one and she'll be able to grow up with books- the best thing ever).

      Yes I prefer the covers to match! And if it's a favorite series absolutely multiple editions may be necessary! I've been known to buy multiple copies so I have a "reading" copy lol- one that I can read and if the spine breaks oh well, but a pristine copy too that never gets opened.

      I don't really do recipe books but I love bookish decor and I can totally see how the right cookbook or reipe book could enhance a kitchen space.

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  4. I don't collect tbh. Sometimes I buy the same book in Croatian and English, but I don't have an urge to own one specific novel in more editions.
    The story is the same, and that is what matters the most to me.

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    1. The story is the same- and the most important part. The nice thing about not collecting is you don't have books all over the place cluttering up, maybe ?there are advantages. :)

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  5. My criteria is very simple...either I love the book, love the cover, want to read it or it fell in my lap. I am an equal opportunity collector! LOL

    Seriously though...I have way too many books now. I had dreams of having a library wit wall to wall shelves...but it doesn't look like that is happening. My new years resolution is to go through my triple stacked shelves and all the books on my floor and narrow it down to books I love, boos I really want to read and books that look good. Then hopefully they will all fit on my shelves and look nice.

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  6. I hesitate to call myself a book collector in the official collector sense. I do have a lot of books--a thousand or two, maybe more. <y criteria? I "collect" books I've read and enjoyed or books I want to read.:-)

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    1. I don't have that many but I think it's cool you do! The more the merrier. :)

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  7. I'm a collector. We bought a bunch of shelves and still cannot fit all our books on them. I usually go for my favorite authors and really hate how lately publishers change size/style of a series right in the middle.

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    1. Yeah I'm not crazy about that either. Nice that you still have shelf space. :)

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  8. Unfortunately, I don't actually collect books... because I move around quite a bit and that is a lot of work for a 19 year old me to carry around lots of books when I might be moving out of state one day, haha.

    I will admit I have way too many ebooks, though. Does that make a ebook collector?

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    1. Exactly. I think I was in college when I lost a lot of the old books I had- but a lot of them were jsut old SF paperbacks or whatever, nothing really valuable. I sold some but college and moving made it hard, like you said

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  9. I love to collect books, although my husband would probably argue that I have too many! I used to buy books pretty indiscriminately, but these days I try to limit myself to books I've already read, enjoyed, and would read again. I'll also pretty much buy anything by my favorite authors.

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    1. I do too, but like you I've toned down a bit. :) I used to buy all the time! Now I'm a little more careful (books are expensive) and there's always the library too, plus e-books are a bit cheaper. But yes I'll snap up something from a favorite author!

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  10. I used to collect a lot of leather-bound classics, but it got to be so expensive that I've cut way back and pretty much only buy one if it's by one of my favorite authors.

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  11. It's really hard to get people to help you move when you have tons of books. Ha ha. No amount of pizza and beer seems to help! I don't think what I used to do was collecting, it was just buying books to read pre-ereaders, but now, yeah... I would say have started to collect. I love the covers of the Septimus Heap books, so I have gotten five of the ten so far, and the Fairyland books. I also want to collect the Discworld books in paperback.

    Now I have been thinking about older series I have incomplete sets of. I want to catalogue them and see if I can complete them; like the Pern books. Both Dune and Thomas Covenant have had books added to their series since I orginally read them, and I would love those, too. Ha ha. I have some of the offshoot LOtR books, so maybe I can finance some of my new collecting by selling those. :)

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    1. I think book collecting is awesome, and we have to get them anyway to read them right? Unless we get ebook- but some books just need to be owned. The Pern series has definitely grown over the years, I just like having books from this or that series and sometimes it's just books I love.

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  12. Here's a shock: I am an absolute book hoarder. Even bigger shock? I collect The Hunger Games. Kidding obviously, hahah. But in general, I NEED to own books I love. And then when I extra love them (THG) I have to own ALLLL the books. When I was younger, I owned ALL of The Baby-Sitters Club books. And then a few got lost when my parents' basement flooded and I am still not over it, tbh.

    I also now collect The 100... which is STUPID because I HATE the books. I need to be stopped, basically.

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    1. You know, I don't know what it is about books from childhood like that, but even though I wasn't into Baby Sitters Club (lol) I get it. I had all those $%^%& Hardy Boys books (there's like 50+) when I was a kid and they looked frickin awesome on a shelf. there was like a pride in having all of 'em. And I remember your Hunger Games post where you showed the foreign editions- that was awesome. I've never bought editions like that but I can see...

      Are you collecting those? Ha ha see ! But you know, I LIKE the covers of those Kass Morgan books. Even though I know I probably wouldn't like them, part of me wants to own them too, because... 100.

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  13. I actually thought of you the other day when I bought my adult nephew the Neil Gaiman books with retro pulp-style covers. I only meant to get one, but they looked so cool, I wound up getting all three.

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  14. If I really like a book I try to buy first printing and first edition. That sometimes requires an eBay purchase. I like hardback books over paperbacks.

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  15. I definitely collect books too but I have limited space at the moment which stops me from having all the editions I'd like. Like for favorite books, I'd like to own multiple editions either for the different covers or because some are collectors editions. As a younger reader though I mostly read crap books (LOL!) so I haven't kept those...other than my editions of the Anne of Green Gables series! They're all faded out but I still love them :D

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  16. Great topic! When I was a kid, I read a lot, but I tended to collect romance novels and true stories more than anything. There was a period of time, that I got caught up in anything Godfather-ish. (lol) Like you, I moved around so much in the Air Force and in the Telecommunications business and lost them. AAbout 10 year ago, I started finding a lot of the older ones I lost, and picked them up, in addition to all the new ones I keep getting. (lol). Now I tend to collect in groups. So once I find an author I really enjoy, I make it a point to get all those books. My husband moved two books out of a collection once, and I dang near had heart palpitations. (lol) Needless to say, he gets stuff to read from the TBR pile these days, not the actual bookcases. I know technology is going into more e-reading, but I still like holding books in my hands, turning the pages and using a cool bookmark to keep my place. I've often wondered if physical books will be around 20 years from now. Hugs...and Happy Monday!

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