There's something charming about a disorganized, untidy shelf of books. That said, this would cause me to breakdown and cry for the next 4 weeks straight.
I used to go to this variety thrift shop that sold books. Stocked my own personal, mismatched library over like 12 to 15 years from that place, from grade school clear through to university. In my high school years I'd save my lunch money on the last week of the month cause they'd have a half price clearance sale (before they brought in new stock). I'd go Friday afternoon after school and buy a stack of 5 to 7 books. The old place burned down last year when a fire in the café next door got outta control. It felt like losing a familiy member.
but at least you get some weird interesting past editions ocasionally XD, I have to buy everything from Amazon because I won't find any weird fantasy or Sci Fi book written in English in Mexico lol
It's worse when English isn't your native language and some books in the series are in a different language (also reading books that were translated from English is painful by itself).
I'll add my case of foreign book: Different language, the title on the book's spine is mirrored (this goes for every english book, its the complete opposite of my language and it makes me want to cry), the artstyle is COMPLETELY different. At least they both have hardshell bookcover T-T
@@nathanbeer3338 nope, it's german :') idk how to explain the mirrored part but it's not that its read from right to left, it has more to do with the structure. While german book titles face the right direction, english books face the left (or other way around,not really sure rn)
@@aliin8763 Ah okay, I thought you meant the whole book is mirrored which is the case of my native language which is Hebrew because it's written from right to left.
@@aliin8763 same here, I have to either shelf them upside down or rebuy them and then they somehow still don’t match but now I’m also broke… it’s a pain to be honest
Makes me wonder how my dad acquired all such perfect series and avoided the pain I feel now. Those Stephen King books in the library man..... the uniformity they display, all neatly stacked in a row.... I'm jealous.
my grandpa had a lot of books on his shelf that were all uniform. Apparently, door to door book salesmen used to go around and sell these nice collections.
My Grandma had a mega Stephen King collection. She would buy them hardcover as they released, read them once then set them on the shelf. That and Anne Rice. I know what you mean, it looked so smooth.
This felt like a personal attack lol; I've returned books that I've ordered online before just because the artwork didn't match what was advertised, and I rarely ask for books as gifts because I don't trust other people to find the exact copy I'm after (my fiancée is the sole exception, she knows I'm a freak and has accepted it)😂
Exactly hahah, I literally included pictures and what edition and color and shit it was supposed to be on my wishlist and they still bought a BLUE book with a cartoony person on the cover when I wanted a RED one with a super simple and clean design😭😭 still happy for the book ofc but like cmon
Also: different cover art versions in a single series! I remember this BS when I was in school and there were American and British covers for Harry Potter which looked totally different. Of course now we have the option of buying all of them in a box set but what to do about all the previous mismatched ones!? Sure as hell can't part with them!
Every country/region usually has a different illustrator, that isn't really that unusual. What I'm wondering is where you were where both versions were available.
This happened with the Lunar Chronicles. I had the ones with the simple covers. Cinder had a foot, Scarlett had a cape, Cress had her hair, Winter had an apple, and Fairest had a mirror with Levana's face being covered by a veil. Come to find out the softcover versions have art on them showing the characters, and they look amazing, especially Fairest, but I could only buy Stars Above with the softcover art. That was annoying, and I wish I had the softcover versions of all of them.
@@rosykindbunny1313 I've never read those books, but they were big around my high school. I never really liked the cover designs, but I looked up the ones that you described and... Wow. Those covers look amazing. Why do I never see those around?
I actually kinda like having all my mismatched sets because it tells a story from all the different thrift stores you were able to buy them at at the time. And if you’re like me, you can remember when and where you bought each book
I had this a lot. Though, I convinced myself that buying a book that I already own, but in a matching cover/size isn't a waste of money. It gives me piece of mind and pure bliss when looking at my book shelves.
@@djokealtena2538 I actually just bought a second single volume of LOTR, because I reread it so often, it's my travel book to keep me from over packing books as well as one of my absolute favourites 😁
Luckily, as I grew up poor, I always got secondhand versions from friends and my local libraries. Never had a complete series, so matching ones were not even something I ever considered. It’s quite funny to see how affording all of these books still doesn’t satisfy people. I guess it figures, money can’t buy you happiness.
Ikr!! I'm too poor to buy even books.I read on ebook.I'm just happy to read.Though sometimes I buy books.But It's really impossible to satisfy yourself when you wanna read all the books in the world.
I'm fine with just having all the books, you just sometimes look at your shelf and cringe as you realize that one of the books has a completely different design. The book itself is fine, but since it's basically decoration while you aren't reading it...
Unpopular opinion: I actually prefer for the books in my series to all looks very different because then it looks as though every book was one I found personally, and it would look more like a collection which I have been growing and caring about. If all your books look the same it just looks like you bought them all off Amazon in one go. Besides having different covers means it looks like I'm a diverse reader when I'm not.
I feel you! Sometimes publishers just change up the design and size while the series is being released. Or the originals go out of print and they completely change up the new releases. It makes it hard, frustrating and really stressful to be a book collector. Almost like you HAVE to buy the whole series at once in the same design to not get your shelves messed up. But that's expensive :P Great channel btw, I subscribed.
My family thrifted a lot of books when I was a kid. The Narnia books were a jumble. Two of them were Harper Collins standard paperbacks, two of them were the Harper Collins miniature paperbacks, one was a Scholastic paperback, and two of them were pre-1998 US paperback copies (if you know the history of those books, you know that the author actually made some minor improvements to the US editions and then Harper Collins reverted back to the original UK text for some reason when they acquired the rights in 1998). This also led to my parents getting confused on what order the books went in because of the two different orders on the backs of the books.
I thrifted for years before I managed to get all of the Narnia books in the hardbacks I read as a child. It's like a treasure hunt. :-) We borrowed all the books at the public library when I was a kid.
At least they're uniformally... Un-uniform. These kind of shelves look like more like a reader's shelves to me than someone who only has pristine box collections!
YAY for some reality here. No need to be a nerd either. Can't say how many times we grump looking at all those booktubers that seem to have all those perfect looking shelves behind them with matching expensive books that always look brand new no matter how many times they say they've read them. My shelves are often "where will this fit". Most of my series are mismatched. Probably because I'm a reader. I mean seriously. Like Wheel of Time I started buying the arty Orbit publications in the 90's and later they went and stopped doing art covers so the rest of my set became chunkers with covers that looked like text on wrapping paper. Sheesh. As much as I like matching sets I'm not going to spend hundreds of dollars replacing books I've read on new fancy 10, 15, 20 book sets when I can spend that money on buying more books I haven't read.
I feel like everyone has such a weird Tolkien collection specifically, just so so many editions of those books it inevitably will just be a mess in the end.
This is especially hard on me because I got most of my books came from the thriftstore. The covers are from different decades and the covers and sizes are different.
I feel that, especially since most of my books are thrifted byt at the same time, I like how... alive those books feel. Like there is a bit of a story in the book itself and especially with series with different editions together, it's like holding pieces with context. Especially with second hand books, they feel pre loved and with persinality. Idk there is something charming about mismatched book colections
Yes!! This is EXACTLY what happens to me! I have a collection of fifteen book from same series, and only ONE of them is hardcover and it drives me crazy!!
This is the most relatable thing I've seen in a long time. All of the Tolkien books I own have Alan Lee illustrations on their respective covers and Tolkien's name printed in gold letters... all except The Return of the King, which has an image from the movie and no gold letters.
I have this lovely box set of all the Narnia books, and I've had them for years, and I convinced my sister to start reading Narnia. And guess what! SHE LOST PRINCE CASPIAN AND NOW THERE'S A GAPING HOLE IN MY BEAUTIFUL BOX!
The only way I've been able to get over this is by ignoring what series my books are a part of and sorting them all by color. That way all of the heights are jumbled up and it looks kind of like a library. It works for most of them and I own a ton so it forms a nice gradient. I can still find the books easily because I spend so much time with them of course I know the exact color of their spine 😉. It's a little bit ocd of me (I'm always tweaking the order to make it look better) but it is sort of a solution 😝
yeah for getting back into reading again in the last year I'm starting to feel the pain, thankfully with the ASOIAF example they did come out of a paperback version of "a dance with dragons", at least it came of the boxset I got lol
Meanwhile us audiobook listeners have to worry about the narrator voice actors losing their touch or changing midway through the series and ruining the voice of the characters.
I feel this pain so hard! I get all my books from thrift stores, yard sales, and the occasional goodwill and my bookshelf is a mess with old and new prints jumbles together in what is really an organized bookshelf. Complete mess 🤣
I definitely feel this type of pain every now and then. Mostly from some books in a series I have being hardcover and some being paperback. I don't worry about the cover art because I make sure to have a consistent series collection. I watch out for covers of books that have a movie or TV show coming out, I do not get those covers. Don't get me started on inconsistent sizes for certain books in a series XD
I am glad to discover this cool channel and be one if its first 300 subscribers. In one year's time, we will be considered as the "first disciples" of a channel with 10.000-s of followers
A lot of people likely have a similar ASOIAF collection. You can fairly accurately guess when someone started reading, by what was out at the time, by how many hardbacks in their library, - if they could wait the extra months for the paperback to come out. Personally, have Feadt and Dance. And my Dune collection is all over the place as I have some of my Dad's from the middle 70's where they changed the cover every printing it seemed like.
This is something I funnyily enough love about my book colection. It tells its own story, some series I have all matching because I bought them all at once and other were gotten piecemeal. Some are hardcovers because I got them when they came out and other I am very late to reading. Sad that people cringe at something I find so nice and cozy about books as a hobby
Unlike what Saruman said, we have not chosen the way of pain. It is thrust upon us by circumstance. Thrifting is a good way to go for building a collection quick--if the goal is simply to read. Of course, piecing together a trilogy or series can be a challenge. Even Amazon can be frustrating at times, in the uniform book department.
And this is exactly why I always go for the collection or the box set of a book series when I want one, at the end of all if I don’t like it, well I sell it and relieve myself of the unmatched covers pain…
I've only just started getting into Brandon Sanderson, and so obviously already have all the Cosmere books in paperback already. Tempted now to only buy future Cosmere in ebook until paperback versions come out specifically to avoid this
Too true!! I had HP1 in paperback and HP2-6 in hard cover and then could only find HP7 in paperback. So I like that it's a nice mirroring but also hate it lol.
I love that Michael Whelan cover on Second Foundation with Arkady on the cover. I have that as the wallpaper on one of my computers and rebought the Whelan cover versions a few times over the years. Also I bought the illustrated Barnes & Noble "A Song of Ice and Fire" (Game of Thrones etc.) hard covers but I think they only put out the first three that way. Argh.
I totally feel your pain on this, it's unavoidable and I've just made my peace with it...however I have learnt to appreciate the variety. Odd books are also a sign of their success if they continue to be reprinted.
As someone who has lord of the rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars legends, and other books that don’t match each other, I feel your pain. It almost makes me want to buy copies that match each other.
I haven’t read for fun in a while but I just started the expanse series and I did the same thing. Bought the 10 year collectors hardcover versions for the first 3 and then the paperbacks for the remaining 6
Omg this is literally me as well. I am fortunate enough to have the Penguin Harry Potter covers so they're all uniform. This is why boxsets are a must!
Literally. I was searching for the edition of the book that matches the one I already have from this series, and IT’S NOWHERE TO BE FOUND. And my mum is like “do you need the text, or the cover???” She doesn’t get it…
That was actually me with ASOIAF. I have owned three copies of A Dance with Dragons overall. One to match the other paperbacks after receiving hardcover for Christmas in 2011, then I picked up the leatherbound box set of all the books. It’s a mighty need for the matching sets, man.
As a french who likes to read her books in the original version when it’s english i have now the added issue of country of origin. Ofc my old french translations aren’t gonna match the books in english but then it’s also often a coin toss if I’m gonna get the US or UK version when I’m ordering online. Even when I’m ordering the whole series at once. Sometimes amazon just lies to you about it. And good luck finding bookstores selling (more than a handful boring) books in english around where i live.
Yes!! No one understands why I will literally rebuy a book that I already own so that I can get the cover/edition to match the rest. Although some series, like my Harry Potter one, is half paperback (books 1-3) and half hardcover (books 4-7). They at least all have the same colour scheme and look the same, plus the old books hold memories and I can't bring myself to replace them.
Same... like the same exact issue and HP books too. I've come so close to spend the $150 to all new hard covers of the series, I dunno how many times. I always talk myself out of it because not only do I have the original books I bought on release but the Stephen Fry audio books too. So it feels like I'm investing money into something I own twice, lol.
I have a thing for owning books that I love as hardcovers, but they are sooo expensive compared to paperbacks. Whenever I can get one cheap, I'm so happy and don't even mind that it doesn't match the others, though ideally it would be sweet to have a fully library with matching hardcover series.
At least you got every book. There's no pain like seeing your shelf and having one volume missing. No matter how you try to hide it, the hole will always be visible. Your heart will always knows its missing.
I recently rebought the first two books in the Inheritance Cycle (Eragon) so that they would all match. I didn't realize the author was actually writing another entry in the series. The new book matches a DIFFERENT set of covers for the series that have come out since. Oh well, at least they are the same size.
So true y'all. I buy my books from the same bookstore, book 1～3 was from the same publishing company, then book 4 the bookstore sticker it from a different company and the size and art style of the book just don't fit the rest.😢
This reminds me of when I got the Foundation series in mass market paperback with the 2004 covers except the cover for Second Foundation was the newer one made to promote the Apple TV show💀
The pain is real lol 😂. I remember a few years ago when I was buying the Harry Potter series I was buying the newest cover versions at the time and my dad kept trying to buy ones with a different cover and I was like no dad they have to match lol 😂. It’s a book nerd thing if they don’t match it drives you crazy. I also wanted the new ones because the artwork was cooler and more my preferred art style. Don’t get me wrong hardbacks are amazing and durable but paperbacks rule in terms of comfortability for me. Xx
I understand this pain,I have normal a game of thrones paperback and a regular a clash of kings paper back but my storm of swords paperback is an original from the 90s so it looks massive in comparison
This is so true and so painful!! I got all the wings of fire books (except 15) and for Christmas I asked for 12, 13, and 14 and I should have put softcover now I got those 3 in hardcover and it’s just pain to look at, I’m even considering buying all of them in hardcover now the hardcover looks so good Idk if I’ll have room! It’s complicated when it doesn’t need to be!! SMH 🤦♀️
Oh, no! Just triggered my book OCD. 😄 My problem too, different size or design of the same series drives me nuts to the point I'll search, till I find the matching piece.
I felt this way when I was trying to get all the original covers for the Lunar Chronicles series. I didn’t want them in hardcover because I had gotten accustomed to paperback. But they had changed the covers for the paperback. Well I didn’t like the new covers (and I know the person worked hard on the art style, but I just didn’t like it all that much). So, I ended up having to get used covers. One came in a plastic bag….but I was happy. I had all the original covers. But I feel this. I need my books to be consistent. Either they have the same cover, or they have to be either all hardcover or paperback. There is no in between.
That looked almost identical to my Harry Potter collection for years. Finally broke down and bought the hardcover Sorcerer’s Stone just to match the rest of the set, though the cover is not nearly as worn from use as the others in my collection…
The fourth one is truly painful, I owned the first edition printing of The School for Good and Evil series (very pretty illustration book cover for the first few series of the book), then there's the latest publishing of the books along with the latest release tittles they've change the book covers and the new book don't even matches the aesthetic of my older ones. 😭 (Also i hate the change of the book covers)
I got the Warrior cats books and was trying to get them all them the newer, reprinted cover art, but my mom got me the whole second arc with the old cover art and it doesn’t match the others on the shelf. I’m grateful that the new cover art for the books wasn’t that good anyway, so I’ll stick with the ones I’ve got.
I actually have my dad's old copy of The wheel of Time series and I went out and rebought a couple of the books so that they would have the original cover
I bought multiple copies of a couple books in the ‘Malazan Book of the Fallen’ series to ensure that I got all ten in the Mass Market Paperback size with matching cover art styles.
I felt this! All of my Expanse books are matching paperbacks… until Leviathan Falls which is a great big hardback and doesn’t fit anywhere! But I’m not waiting until the paperback comes out 😀
I have two of these problems with my Wheel of Time collection. All of them are large hardcovers except for Book 2 which is a small softcover and for some reason the hardcovers for books 7 and 11 are an inch taller than all the other ones.
Damn the pain, I've been looking for a GOT A storm of Swords part 1 harper voyager edition for months now with a dragon cover pattern....I now always make it a thing to save all the links of the books osf an edition before buying any lol.
The pain is real! ALSO! When books are available with the same cover art but in different sizes (who else has a ruler on hand every time they order books online?). Or same cover art but different design on the spine. Or you're collecting a beautiful translated edition of Asimov's Foundation and Robot stuff but for some odd reaso two books aren't available in that edition and then you pick up an English version instead that also doesn't match but at least you can sort it into a different book shelf because you separate by language.
There's something charming about a disorganized, untidy shelf of books.
That said, this would cause me to breakdown and cry for the next 4 weeks straight.
lol
😂 this is painful and especially true if you thrift your books.
I work at a used book store, so that's what my shelves look like 😂
@@brynndolynn that sounds about right! 😂 I’m sure you found some great books there.
I used to go to this variety thrift shop that sold books. Stocked my own personal, mismatched library over like 12 to 15 years from that place, from grade school clear through to university. In my high school years I'd save my lunch money on the last week of the month cause they'd have a half price clearance sale (before they brought in new stock). I'd go Friday afternoon after school and buy a stack of 5 to 7 books.
The old place burned down last year when a fire in the café next door got outta control. It felt like losing a familiy member.
So so so true! 🤣
but at least you get some weird interesting past editions ocasionally XD, I have to buy everything from Amazon because I won't find any weird fantasy or Sci Fi book written in English in Mexico lol
It's worse when English isn't your native language and some books in the series are in a different language (also reading books that were translated from English is painful by itself).
I'll add my case of foreign book: Different language, the title on the book's spine is mirrored (this goes for every english book, its the complete opposite of my language and it makes me want to cry), the artstyle is COMPLETELY different. At least they both have hardshell bookcover T-T
@@aliin8763 Is your native language Hebrew by any chance?
@@nathanbeer3338 nope, it's german :') idk how to explain the mirrored part but it's not that its read from right to left, it has more to do with the structure. While german book titles face the right direction, english books face the left (or other way around,not really sure rn)
@@aliin8763 Ah okay, I thought you meant the whole book is mirrored which is the case of my native language which is Hebrew because it's written from right to left.
@@aliin8763 same here, I have to either shelf them upside down or rebuy them and then they somehow still don’t match but now I’m also broke… it’s a pain to be honest
Makes me wonder how my dad acquired all such perfect series and avoided the pain I feel now. Those Stephen King books in the library man..... the uniformity they display, all neatly stacked in a row.... I'm jealous.
Nice! It's hard not to feel a bit jealous when seeing pristine book shelves
my grandpa had a lot of books on his shelf that were all uniform. Apparently, door to door book salesmen used to go around and sell these nice collections.
My Grandma had a mega Stephen King collection. She would buy them hardcover as they released, read them once then set them on the shelf. That and Anne Rice. I know what you mean, it looked so smooth.
On a spiritual level, man. I feel this on a *spiritual level*
This felt like a personal attack lol; I've returned books that I've ordered online before just because the artwork didn't match what was advertised, and I rarely ask for books as gifts because I don't trust other people to find the exact copy I'm after (my fiancée is the sole exception, she knows I'm a freak and has accepted it)😂
lol
SAME!!!
Exactly hahah, I literally included pictures and what edition and color and shit it was supposed to be on my wishlist and they still bought a BLUE book with a cartoony person on the cover when I wanted a RED one with a super simple and clean design😭😭 still happy for the book ofc but like cmon
I've honestly done the same with returning unmatched artwork/hard cover, paperback editions.
@@alvatillback9263 damn, now that hurts. Reason to end the friendship.
The most relatable bookshelf tour 😂
Also: different cover art versions in a single series! I remember this BS when I was in school and there were American and British covers for Harry Potter which looked totally different. Of course now we have the option of buying all of them in a box set but what to do about all the previous mismatched ones!? Sure as hell can't part with them!
Every country/region usually has a different illustrator, that isn't really that unusual. What I'm wondering is where you were where both versions were available.
This happened with the Lunar Chronicles. I had the ones with the simple covers. Cinder had a foot, Scarlett had a cape, Cress had her hair, Winter had an apple, and Fairest had a mirror with Levana's face being covered by a veil. Come to find out the softcover versions have art on them showing the characters, and they look amazing, especially Fairest, but I could only buy Stars Above with the softcover art. That was annoying, and I wish I had the softcover versions of all of them.
@@rosykindbunny1313 I've never read those books, but they were big around my high school. I never really liked the cover designs, but I looked up the ones that you described and...
Wow. Those covers look amazing. Why do I never see those around?
@@braydengraves4655 The hardcover or softcover designs?
@@rosykindbunny1313 Softcover.
I actually kinda like having all my mismatched sets because it tells a story from all the different thrift stores you were able to buy them at at the time. And if you’re like me, you can remember when and where you bought each book
I had this a lot. Though, I convinced myself that buying a book that I already own, but in a matching cover/size isn't a waste of money. It gives me piece of mind and pure bliss when looking at my book shelves.
Stop fooling yourself. It definitely is a waste of money
@@lestath2345 Everybody has their priorities and hobbies. Other people "waste" money on other things.
@@huro1845 Sorry, my bad, I have problem when trying to make it clear that I'm just kidding
It is simple you have a travel version that you can read till it breaks and you have the bookshelf version there to be pretty
@@djokealtena2538 I actually just bought a second single volume of LOTR, because I reread it so often, it's my travel book to keep me from over packing books as well as one of my absolute favourites 😁
Luckily, as I grew up poor, I always got secondhand versions from friends and my local libraries. Never had a complete series, so matching ones were not even something I ever considered. It’s quite funny to see how affording all of these books still doesn’t satisfy people. I guess it figures, money can’t buy you happiness.
Ikr!! I'm too poor to buy even books.I read on ebook.I'm just happy to read.Though sometimes I buy books.But It's really impossible to satisfy yourself when you wanna read all the books in the world.
Money can buy you happiness. How would you feel right now if you were billionaire? Lol
@@angelnunnart he didn’t talk about himself rather of people seemingly having enough money Isn't content.
I'm fine with just having all the books, you just sometimes look at your shelf and cringe as you realize that one of the books has a completely different design. The book itself is fine, but since it's basically decoration while you aren't reading it...
Of course I am grateful to have all those books. It's just being a little fussy about the details.
Unpopular opinion:
I actually prefer for the books in my series to all looks very different because then it looks as though every book was one I found personally, and it would look more like a collection which I have been growing and caring about.
If all your books look the same it just looks like you bought them all off Amazon in one go.
Besides having different covers means it looks like I'm a diverse reader when I'm not.
when the spines aren't consistent with placing of name & book number, it drives me crazy
so basically all of Wheel of Time
It’s good to see people suffer from the same stuff as I do 😁
I feel you! Sometimes publishers just change up the design and size while the series is being released. Or the originals go out of print and they completely change up the new releases. It makes it hard, frustrating and really stressful to be a book collector. Almost like you HAVE to buy the whole series at once in the same design to not get your shelves messed up. But that's expensive :P
Great channel btw, I subscribed.
This channel is going to explode with new subscribers. People love a person with a good sense of humor. Great video
I appreciate that!
My family thrifted a lot of books when I was a kid. The Narnia books were a jumble. Two of them were Harper Collins standard paperbacks, two of them were the Harper Collins miniature paperbacks, one was a Scholastic paperback, and two of them were pre-1998 US paperback copies (if you know the history of those books, you know that the author actually made some minor improvements to the US editions and then Harper Collins reverted back to the original UK text for some reason when they acquired the rights in 1998). This also led to my parents getting confused on what order the books went in because of the two different orders on the backs of the books.
I thrifted for years before I managed to get all of the Narnia books in the hardbacks I read as a child. It's like a treasure hunt. :-) We borrowed all the books at the public library when I was a kid.
At least they're uniformally... Un-uniform. These kind of shelves look like more like a reader's shelves to me than someone who only has pristine box collections!
YAY for some reality here. No need to be a nerd either. Can't say how many times we grump looking at all those booktubers that seem to have all those perfect looking shelves behind them with matching expensive books that always look brand new no matter how many times they say they've read them.
My shelves are often "where will this fit". Most of my series are mismatched. Probably because I'm a reader. I mean seriously. Like Wheel of Time I started buying the arty Orbit publications in the 90's and later they went and stopped doing art covers so the rest of my set became chunkers with covers that looked like text on wrapping paper.
Sheesh. As much as I like matching sets I'm not going to spend hundreds of dollars replacing books I've read on new fancy 10, 15, 20 book sets when I can spend that money on buying more books I haven't read.
I feel like everyone has such a weird Tolkien collection specifically, just so so many editions of those books it inevitably will just be a mess in the end.
This is especially hard on me because I got most of my books came from the thriftstore. The covers are from different decades and the covers and sizes are different.
I feel this on an emotional level! My Percy Jackson collection is a mess of hardcovers and paperbacks and mixed editions
I feel that, especially since most of my books are thrifted byt at the same time, I like how... alive those books feel. Like there is a bit of a story in the book itself and especially with series with different editions together, it's like holding pieces with context. Especially with second hand books, they feel pre loved and with persinality. Idk there is something charming about mismatched book colections
Collecting Tolkien's work in the fabulously illustrated new edition hardcovers is a great pride of mine.
Oh yes that new edition of lord of the rings looks amazing!
Hopefully I can do the same as well
This hits hard. I feel your pain, Mike.
The wheel of time one really hit my soul
The cover art is what peaked my interest when I started reading them in high school
This happened with The Lunar Chronicles for me. It hurt. Especially when I had mostly hardcover but the softcover covers had cool art on them.
I love the lunar chronicles!!
Yes!! This is EXACTLY what happens to me! I have a collection of fifteen book from same series, and only ONE of them is hardcover and it drives me crazy!!
This is the most relatable thing I've seen in a long time.
All of the Tolkien books I own have Alan Lee illustrations on their respective covers and Tolkien's name printed in gold letters... all except The Return of the King, which has an image from the movie and no gold letters.
Ok but on the flip side there’s nothing more beautiful than a set of books that matches perfectly
Me, an e-book reader: *Look what they need to do to mimic a fraction of my power!*
I have this lovely box set of all the Narnia books, and I've had them for years, and I convinced my sister to start reading Narnia. And guess what!
SHE LOST PRINCE CASPIAN AND NOW THERE'S A GAPING HOLE IN MY BEAUTIFUL BOX!
The only way I've been able to get over this is by ignoring what series my books are a part of and sorting them all by color. That way all of the heights are jumbled up and it looks kind of like a library. It works for most of them and I own a ton so it forms a nice gradient. I can still find the books easily because I spend so much time with them of course I know the exact color of their spine 😉. It's a little bit ocd of me (I'm always tweaking the order to make it look better) but it is sort of a solution 😝
I feel your pain brother. Been going through the same
yeah for getting back into reading again in the last year I'm starting to feel the pain, thankfully with the ASOIAF example they did come out of a paperback version of "a dance with dragons", at least it came of the boxset I got lol
Meanwhile us audiobook listeners have to worry about the narrator voice actors losing their touch or changing midway through the series and ruining the voice of the characters.
I feel this pain so hard! I get all my books from thrift stores, yard sales, and the occasional goodwill and my bookshelf is a mess with old and new prints jumbles together in what is really an organized bookshelf. Complete mess 🤣
I definitely feel this type of pain every now and then. Mostly from some books in a series I have being hardcover and some being paperback. I don't worry about the cover art because I make sure to have a consistent series collection. I watch out for covers of books that have a movie or TV show coming out, I do not get those covers. Don't get me started on inconsistent sizes for certain books in a series XD
I am glad to discover this cool channel and be one if its first 300 subscribers. In one year's time, we will be considered as the "first disciples" of a channel with 10.000-s of followers
Thank you!
A lot of people likely have a similar ASOIAF collection.
You can fairly accurately guess when someone started reading, by what was out at the time, by how many hardbacks in their library, - if they could wait the extra months for the paperback to come out. Personally, have Feadt and Dance.
And my Dune collection is all over the place as I have some of my Dad's from the middle 70's where they changed the cover every printing it seemed like.
This is something I funnyily enough love about my book colection. It tells its own story, some series I have all matching because I bought them all at once and other were gotten piecemeal. Some are hardcovers because I got them when they came out and other I am very late to reading. Sad that people cringe at something I find so nice and cozy about books as a hobby
Unlike what Saruman said, we have not chosen the way of pain. It is thrust upon us by circumstance. Thrifting is a good way to go for building a collection quick--if the goal is simply to read. Of course, piecing together a trilogy or series can be a challenge. Even Amazon can be frustrating at times, in the uniform book department.
And this is exactly why I always go for the collection or the box set of a book series when I want one, at the end of all if I don’t like it, well I sell it and relieve myself of the unmatched covers pain…
I can understand you very well I HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM TOO DUDE... IT PAINS A LOT
I've only just started getting into Brandon Sanderson, and so obviously already have all the Cosmere books in paperback already. Tempted now to only buy future Cosmere in ebook until paperback versions come out specifically to avoid this
Oh don't get me started... My books from Brandon Sanderson have 4 different sizes :')
Too true!! I had HP1 in paperback and HP2-6 in hard cover and then could only find HP7 in paperback. So I like that it's a nice mirroring but also hate it lol.
I love that Michael Whelan cover on Second Foundation with Arkady on the cover. I have that as the wallpaper on one of my computers and rebought the Whelan cover versions a few times over the years. Also I bought the illustrated Barnes & Noble "A Song of Ice and Fire" (Game of Thrones etc.) hard covers but I think they only put out the first three that way. Argh.
I totally feel your pain on this, it's unavoidable and I've just made my peace with it...however I have learnt to appreciate the variety. Odd books are also a sign of their success if they continue to be reprinted.
As someone who has lord of the rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars legends, and other books that don’t match each other, I feel your pain. It almost makes me want to buy copies that match each other.
Just be thankful for enjoying this pleasure in life. Nice collections you have. I want Dune one, but I am a slow reader.
In shopping websites, you plan to buy a whole book series and there's discount! But darn it!! Your friend gifted you the first book :(
I haven’t read for fun in a while but I just started the expanse series and I did the same thing. Bought the 10 year collectors hardcover versions for the first 3 and then the paperbacks for the remaining 6
Those GRR Martin books on the shelf did make me laugh out loud! lol
EMBRACE. Embrace a shelf that truly reflects the state of your mind.
Omg this is literally me as well. I am fortunate enough to have the Penguin Harry Potter covers so they're all uniform. This is why boxsets are a must!
Literally. I was searching for the edition of the book that matches the one I already have from this series, and IT’S NOWHERE TO BE FOUND. And my mum is like “do you need the text, or the cover???” She doesn’t get it…
Yup, been there!
And that's how you end up with multiple copies of the same book in the end... You settle for "the wrong" edition and then you find the right one...
That was actually me with ASOIAF. I have owned three copies of A Dance with Dragons overall. One to match the other paperbacks after receiving hardcover for Christmas in 2011, then I picked up the leatherbound box set of all the books.
It’s a mighty need for the matching sets, man.
As a french who likes to read her books in the original version when it’s english i have now the added issue of country of origin. Ofc my old french translations aren’t gonna match the books in english but then it’s also often a coin toss if I’m gonna get the US or UK version when I’m ordering online. Even when I’m ordering the whole series at once. Sometimes amazon just lies to you about it. And good luck finding bookstores selling (more than a handful boring) books in english around where i live.
Yes!! No one understands why I will literally rebuy a book that I already own so that I can get the cover/edition to match the rest. Although some series, like my Harry Potter one, is half paperback (books 1-3) and half hardcover (books 4-7). They at least all have the same colour scheme and look the same, plus the old books hold memories and I can't bring myself to replace them.
Same... like the same exact issue and HP books too. I've come so close to spend the $150 to all new hard covers of the series, I dunno how many times. I always talk myself out of it because not only do I have the original books I bought on release but the Stephen Fry audio books too. So it feels like I'm investing money into something I own twice, lol.
I would do this if I weren't s poor student
Oh golly, preaching to the choir! Your bookcase looks like mine, I feel your pain!
I have a thing for owning books that I love as hardcovers, but they are sooo expensive compared to paperbacks. Whenever I can get one cheap, I'm so happy and don't even mind that it doesn't match the others, though ideally it would be sweet to have a fully library with matching hardcover series.
That game of thrones one is so vicious and humongous on that shelf, sending u thoughts & prayers 😭❤
At least you got every book. There's no pain like seeing your shelf and having one volume missing. No matter how you try to hide it, the hole will always be visible. Your heart will always knows its missing.
I feel ya, I really do, but just remember the words are all that really matter. *THE WORDS*
I recently rebought the first two books in the Inheritance Cycle (Eragon) so that they would all match. I didn't realize the author was actually writing another entry in the series. The new book matches a DIFFERENT set of covers for the series that have come out since. Oh well, at least they are the same size.
This is remarkably accurate 😂😂
So true y'all. I buy my books from the same bookstore, book 1～3 was from the same publishing company, then book 4 the bookstore sticker it from a different company and the size and art style of the book just don't fit the rest.😢
I obsess about getting the right book to match in the series. I’ve even sometimes bought a new book of one I already have just so it will match.
This hurts me too much, especially some of the books you own are worn.
This reminds me of when I got the Foundation series in mass market paperback with the 2004 covers except the cover for Second Foundation was the newer one made to promote the Apple TV show💀
Hits deep with incarnations of immortality
I was reading a series (forgot it 😂) but I had three book covers all the same but the fourth book I couldn’t find the cover that would match 😢
Ouch, that felt like a call out to my shelf...
But, well, gotta love with the pain if you prefer second hand books 😭
Nice book collection dude. You got good taste!
Thanks!
The pain is real lol 😂.
I remember a few years ago when I was buying the Harry Potter series I was buying the newest cover versions at the time and my dad kept trying to buy ones with a different cover and I was like no dad they have to match lol 😂. It’s a book nerd thing if they don’t match it drives you crazy.
I also wanted the new ones because the artwork was cooler and more my preferred art style.
Don’t get me wrong hardbacks are amazing and durable but paperbacks rule in terms of comfortability for me. Xx
Oh man-I thrift most of my books and this is SO RELATABLE 😩
(Fun video!! 👍🏻)
I feel you pain. My Wheel of Time collection is all over the place
I understand this pain,I have normal a game of thrones paperback and a regular a clash of kings paper back but my storm of swords paperback is an original from the 90s so it looks massive in comparison
I have 3 different editions of books in the Alex Rider series and that always bugged me when I was younger
That's the pain I can't ever describe 😅
This is so true and so painful!! I got all the wings of fire books (except 15) and for Christmas I asked for 12, 13, and 14 and I should have put softcover now I got those 3 in hardcover and it’s just pain to look at, I’m even considering buying all of them in hardcover now the hardcover looks so good Idk if I’ll have room! It’s complicated when it doesn’t need to be!! SMH 🤦♀️
Oh, no! Just triggered my book OCD. 😄
My problem too, different size or design of the same series drives me nuts to the point I'll search, till I find the matching piece.
I felt this way when I was trying to get all the original covers for the Lunar Chronicles series. I didn’t want them in hardcover because I had gotten accustomed to paperback. But they had changed the covers for the paperback. Well I didn’t like the new covers (and I know the person worked hard on the art style, but I just didn’t like it all that much). So, I ended up having to get used covers. One came in a plastic bag….but I was happy. I had all the original covers. But I feel this. I need my books to be consistent. Either they have the same cover, or they have to be either all hardcover or paperback. There is no in between.
There's something charming about a mismatching book series. A full matching set just looks unread.
Now, as an adult, I spend lots of time looking for a beautiful edition of a book I love that will look good on my shelf 😂
The 8 Dark Tower books with the key in the corner are perfect.
That looked almost identical to my Harry Potter collection for years. Finally broke down and bought the hardcover Sorcerer’s Stone just to match the rest of the set, though the cover is not nearly as worn from use as the others in my collection…
The fourth one is truly painful, I owned the first edition printing of The School for Good and Evil series (very pretty illustration book cover for the first few series of the book), then there's the latest publishing of the books along with the latest release tittles they've change the book covers and the new book don't even matches the aesthetic of my older ones. 😭
(Also i hate the change of the book covers)
This hurts so deeply and is so true
I got the Warrior cats books and was trying to get them all them the newer, reprinted cover art, but my mom got me the whole second arc with the old cover art and it doesn’t match the others on the shelf. I’m grateful that the new cover art for the books wasn’t that good anyway, so I’ll stick with the ones I’ve got.
I actually have my dad's old copy of The wheel of Time series and I went out and rebought a couple of the books so that they would have the original cover
The thing that "grinds my gears" is when I find a book by an author I like but it is in large print.
I love my mismatched chaotic shelf! But I can see how it would annoy people!
Cuando no coinciden ni en tamaño, idioma o editorial... 😢.
Gracias por compartir tu dolor ❤
Im literally like that with the stormlight archives
I bought multiple copies of a couple books in the ‘Malazan Book of the Fallen’ series to ensure that I got all ten in the Mass Market Paperback size with matching cover art styles.
I felt this! All of my Expanse books are matching paperbacks… until Leviathan Falls which is a great big hardback and doesn’t fit anywhere! But I’m not waiting until the paperback comes out 😀
Right!? Sometimes waiting for the paperback to release is impossible!
I have two of these problems with my Wheel of Time collection. All of them are large hardcovers except for Book 2 which is a small softcover and for some reason the hardcovers for books 7 and 11 are an inch taller than all the other ones.
Damn the pain, I've been looking for a GOT A storm of Swords part 1 harper voyager edition for months now with a dragon cover pattern....I now always make it a thing to save all the links of the books osf an edition before buying any lol.
The pain is real! ALSO! When books are available with the same cover art but in different sizes (who else has a ruler on hand every time they order books online?). Or same cover art but different design on the spine. Or you're collecting a beautiful translated edition of Asimov's Foundation and Robot stuff but for some odd reaso two books aren't available in that edition and then you pick up an English version instead that also doesn't match but at least you can sort it into a different book shelf because you separate by language.