What books do you have multiple copies of?

My ebooks folder is backed up, so you might say all of them

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.

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.

https://ebay.io/m/FgPQa9

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.

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.

• Watership Down (I have a hardback large print that is for display purposes only and then I have the copy that I have taken to the beach many times, it is one of my beach reads).
• The Harry Potter Books. I have a set that I have reread many times and then a box set that that has a picture the runs across all the spines.
• Many different sets of The Lord of The Rings with one additional copy of The Two Towers. I borrowed it from a friend in college and never returned it. I have kept it on the off chance I remember to give it back
• The Stand, I have the Abridged and Unabridged versions. (Not sure if that counts)

If you are including Graphic Novels

• I have the original V For Vendetta editions and a combined version that I got to let my kid read.
• Same with The Dark Knight Returns and Electra Assassin.

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 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.

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.

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 two copies of So You Want to Be a Wizard by Diane Duane, which is the original version, not the first edition, but the first one I could get ahold of, and then a tenth anniversary edition just because I liked the art on the dust jacket.

I have hyperlexia, and decent eidetic memory, so it’s difficult for me to reread a book. If I forget that I’ve read a book and I start reading it, I make it to about page 3 and I remember the entire story and I’m like, okay, I can’t read this anymore.

But, so you want to be a wizard by Diane Duane is the first book I’ve ever been able to read more than once. I’m actually due for a reread. It’s been about three years. I’ve probably read it 10 or 15 times.

It is an amazing book and there’s still new things I’m discovering about it after all of this time, which is gobsmacking for a story written for pre-teens.

It also does not hurt that Diane Duane is on blue sky, and she’s actually a person whom I ideologically agree with, which makes me feel good.

The only other stories that I’ve ever been able to read more than once are the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, the First and second Trilogy, but that’s only because those stories are so grammatically dense and so large that even with my pretty good memory, it’s hard for me to remember everything that has happened in them.

I didn’t care for the final quadrilogy. I did read it to its completion, but it didn’t have the same gravitas as the first two trilogies.

But I have multiple copies of the first book of the series in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant because one is the first copy I ever bought, the second one is a signed first edition, and the third one is one that matches the rest of the books in the series as far as the sizing so that it looks good on a shelf.

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.

I have 2 editions of The Gunslinger because Stephen King revised some parts to fit better with the remaining novels. The Gunslinger is a very early work and it shows. I’ve read the first 3 books of the dark tower series at least twice. Last time through the series, after King “completed” it, I started with the original The Gunslinger and ended the series with the revised edition. The differences are relatively minor and, although I am generally a fan of his, I prefer the rough edges of the original. Reading the original first and the revised edition last felt more like a conclusion and coming full circle than the final book ever could have. Despite the differences, they still feel like the same book to me.

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.

Finds book at second hand shop > good book. Let’s get it. Get home to find the book already on my shelf.

I have multiple copies of Love at Goon Park which is a biography of Harry Harlow. I use it in seminars and it’s out of print. Also I keep extra copies of books I frequently lend - On Bullshit by Harry Frankfurt, Cynefin by Dave Snowden and friends, The Peter Principle by Laurence J. Peters, and The Toyota Way by Thomas Liker.

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 two copies of the Star Wars novelization of Revenge of the Sith, one I bought years ago in hardback and the other in a compendium of all three prequel novelizations. Plus a few classics like Beowulf by different translators.

I also have a variety of nonfiction in multiple formats, because I got a bunch of ebooks years ago. Never actually read them because my old Kindle died and I tried putting Adobe Editions and then Calibre on my computer but ran into problems with DRM and other issues and just didn’t get around to fixing them. And now I’ve been buying some nonfiction in print and found that, oops, I already had the ebook. But I’m determined to get to the ebooks at some point because now I have a new phone that actually works and have been experimenting with some FOSS reader apps. (If you have any recs for Android, I’d love to hear it.)

House of Leaves

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

• 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.

• enders game
• enders shadow
• the simarillion

off the top of my head