My Secret Vice

[mark12_30]

To use the hardback one should be in a recliner, modestly reclined (not all the way back) with toes toward the glowing woodstove, and a pleasant cup of tea or coffee at hand (or perhaps an iced juice drink if the woodstove has been hot for a quite a while.)

A couch pillow helps to properly align the book.

[Formendacil]

I'm pretty sure you don't have a problem until you start getting duplicated of the HoME.

I have three volumes of The Book of Lost Tales, Vol. I, and two IDENTICAL (down to the printings) copies of The Peoples of Middle-earth--never mind the multiple (and uncounted) LotR volumes.

I'm Formendacil and I'm a libraholic.

[Kuruharan]

Alas, I possesseth not a woodstove...or for that matter a recliner...

I do, however, possess a hardback copy of The Hobbit which mostly spends its life gathering dust.

[Mister Underhill]

Originally Posted by Mnemosyne

(the more beat-up, the better)

That's the ticket, isn't it? It seems right that books by Tolkien of all authors should have that ancient, "lived-in" feeling. My old trade paperback Unfinished Tales is the best in that regard -- it's yellow with age, warped by water damage, dog-eared and bisected by a broken spine. When it's not in use, I wrap a couple of big rubber-bands around it to keep it all together. It has this great mummy-spice smell. All I need are some blood stains and fire damage and it'd be a regular Book of Mazarbul.

I'm pretty utilitarian with books too, though I definitely am a hoarder in general. I'm a utilitarian hoarder, if you can dig it. I hoard things on the premise that I might be able to use this again someday.

I have several copies of LotR and TH, but no editions worth mentioning. The nicest one I have is the big red slipcase monster that a few others have brought up. It's not portable, though, and I can relate to Kuru that it's not very practical even at home. I prefer to read in bed, and when I use that bad boy, I always end up with a long, wicked, front-cover/spine/rear-cover trench embossed into my abdomen because of the sheer weight of the thing. It does look nice on my shelf though.

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

I admire you people for collecting and reading Tolkien... Is that a bad sign?

The only duplicates that I have are the Tolkien Reader, one came in a boxed set along with the Sil and two other books. My other one, my favourite one is a Tolkien Reader from the 1970's, my grandmother bought it for me from a used books place at the Moose Droppings Festival. The other one is The Two Towers, I also got a hardback, illustrated version of TTT from my grandmother for my birthday this year.

The "Pack Rat" syndrome that most BDers seem to get infected with, I have, I have this strange habit of collecting cardboard boxes, a habit that my parents detest. I think that it is not only part of our human nature (blimey, Doctor Who is starting to take it's toll), but is also an inherited thing. My grandmothers both have this habit, their houses and garages, and storage units are not big enough to keep all of their stuff!

I wish I had more Tolkien books, and read more too!

[Kath]

We do have a number of duplicates in the house because my original reading copies of both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings were the ones given to my father when he was about 13/14. The Hobbit poor thing has had the worst of the years. About three chapters have fallen out and there are more trying to, as well as random pages that seem to have detached themselves. They are all still within the book but trying to read it in the bath turned out to be a really, really bad idea and some of them are now slightly crinkled. Lord of the Rings is also a little battered. The front cover has fallen off one of the books and there are various pages or corners of pages falling out as well.

For that reason and due to going off to uni we now have three copies of The Hobbit and three copies of Lord of the Rings. Despite that, the only ones I really read are still those original copies ... just not in the bath.

[Morthoron]

I still have the original LotR, Sil and Hobbit paperbacks I bought in the 70's when I first read them (you can almost read most of it through several layers of tape holding the bindings together!), and I have hardbound and softbound editions of virtually all of Tolkien's corpus, but I don't consider them duplicates so much as...ummm...having different editions of the same material. I usually buy softcover editions to read and research and hardbound editions to look spiffy in my library.

[mark12_30]

Originally Posted by Kath

They are all still within the book but trying to read it in the bath turned out to be a really, really bad idea and some of them are now slightly crinkled. [snip] Despite that, the only ones I really read are still those original copies ... just not in the bath.

IMO, every serious Tolkien-addict should have a bath-copy of their favorite tomes. Select (or purchase!) an inexpensive paperback copy of your bath book, and cover it carefully and entirely with clear contact-paper. Wrapping the contact paper into the inside of the covers is recommended. This does not prevent one 's hands falling into the water if one falls asleep in the bath; however, it does protect the outer cover from normal splash and drip.

And yes, I've covered several "cheesy paperback" editions this way. One of my favorite tricks is to print out a copy of a nicer cover (i.e. a classic old cover) and wrap the book in that, then cover that with contact paper.

I make my own boxes, too, and cover them with various printed things.

Maybe I should post some pictures...

[Kuruharan]

I've noticed that a number of people (myself included) have hardback copies of Tolkien's works that they admit they never use and said books normally fulfill the very important job of looking spiffy in the library.

When did Tolkien's works become a prestige item? Have they always been? (I personally don't think so.) Is it a result of the influence of the movies? ("Oh, you've seen the films have you? Well, I've read the books! In fact they are all over there looking pretty and heavy and practially unusable on my shelf! Just think of the agony I went through trying to heft those things about and be impressed with me, o lesser mortal!") Or has it been something more gradual?

New Idea: This relates to the Why Tolkien? thread, but is there something about Tolkien that sort of promotes this kind of gathering and hoarding of obscure lore? We all want to get in touch with our inner Gandalf and have multiple volumes of tomes at our fingertips that are only well understood by a few others, with whom we feel the need to fellowship?

[mark12_30]

Personally, I wanted The Red Book because it was a pretty good approximation of the Red Book of Westmarch.

And then, it needed a matching Hobbit.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

I've noticed that a number of people (myself included) have hardback copies of Tolkien's works that they admit they never use and said books normally fulfill the very important job of looking spiffy in the library.

When did Tolkien's works become a prestige item? Have they always been? (I personally don't think so.) Is it a result of the influence of the movies? ("Oh, you've seen the films have you? Well, I've read the books! In fact they are all over there looking pretty and heavy and practially unusable on my shelf!

Hmmm...Well, I'm a rather avid collector of books (my significant other is rolling her eyes at the understatement), some dating to the late 18th century. I have some very nice editions of Tolkien's work (1st editions, deluxe editions, etc.) that I do not open very often (the acidity of one's fingers and all) because of their intrinsic value (or their future value when I eventually kick the bucket and my children inherit them).

Considering the worth of many editions of Tolkien's work, I would certainly consider the books to be prestige items and classics of their genre (and the movies had only a minimal impact on the skyrocketing cost of Tolkien 1st editions). I also have 19th century editions of Poe, Hugo, Dickens, Sir Walter Scott, etc., spiffily displayed in glass-enclosed cases which I don't read either, but I of course have dog-earred duplicates of each.