I posted something related to this earlier in another thread but deleted it because I realised it might be worthy of it’s own discussion.
I don’t own that many books, but there’s a few authors that I’ve read a lot of and would like to own complete collections of their work, or as close to complete as possible. One such author is Tim Winton. I saw recently that a publisher in Australia has released a new collection to mark 40 years of his writing and I thought bingo, that’s for me. However, a brief search left me unable to find any info about how/where I could get them.
So then I started wondering if I really need all the books to match? I don’t really like a very curated bookshelf, aesthetically speaking. I own two of his books already and they’re different editions. So I wondered if maybe I should pick one and try to get all the other books in that series? Or should I just buy whatever editions I can find and have a nice mix. (I just realised I have 2 non fiction aswell which match eachother, but I don’t think there’s any fiction covers to match that)
Steinbeck is another author I love, but I already own about 10 books of his, and I think it’s probably half and half in terms of marching editions. But buying 4 or 5 books I already own just so they can match seems a bit silly and unnecessary.
Anyway, long story short…. I’m not asking anyone to actually tell me what to do, I’m just wondering how people approach this kind of thing. Do you love having a matching collection? Hate it? Never given it any thought? Have you ever bought books you already have just to make them match?
by No_Tomorrow7180