Do you have certain authors where you must own the book, even if you've read it?

I do that with all of Steven J.Gould’s books.
Sometimes I’ll not notice he’s published a new one until I run across it in the library. So I just have to check it out. But then later I just have to own it.

Yep. Me too.

Books by John Dickson Carr * or Carter Dickson.*

I’ve read all of them [he’s dead, so no more new books] :(, but I’m still missing a couple.

  • “Death in Five Boxes” Anyone? :wink:

I like to buy old dog-eared Raymond Chandler novels from secondhand bookshops. As many different covers - pulp lurid to airbrushedly iconic pop-art romanticised noir - and different paper qualities as I can pick up. Same with Orwell. I just don’t like seeing them without a home.

Dangit. Everytime there’s a book thread, someone always beats me to Orwell. :smiley:
[Resume Yosemite Sam mumbling obscenties]

On a serious note…I too buy multiple copies of Orwell books. Especially 1984.

Bill Bryson, with all his travel books and observances on the English language.

Of course I do. When I have copies of their books that generally means I read them over and over again. There are times when I buy books sight unseen (think they look cool at the store and buy them) but I try not to do that too often because then I end up with a pile of books I’d never read again. What I prefer to do is read something from the library and if I love it enough to get it out again (sometimes more than twice) I will go out and buy my own copy. I love secondhand bookstores for that because I find when I read stuff it generally seems to be out of print.

Harlan Ellison, Larry Niven, Kurt Vonnegut, plus I seem to be buying more and more Stephen King, although I don’t think I’ll ever be able to afford everything that man puts out. :slight_smile:

I usually don’t keep books around for long, I always end up carting a big box of them back to the used bookstore for credit and bring half a box of new ones back home. :wink:

There are a few exceptions to that rule. I have everything by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. Sometimes I give copies away, but I always replace them. Actually, all the books I keep are ones that I either plan on reading again or want to pass on to people…or both.

I’ve been out of my reading streak for a couple years now and am just starting to get back in to it. It feels good.

After reading Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver, I had to have my own copy. And I was lucky enough to meet her and have it signed, too!

Jesus Demo, while I’m with you on Camus, and I enjoy Sartre’s plays, I can’t see the need to have on hand copies of Being and Nothingness or Nausea. You one strong guy.

The only author I want to own as much as I can find is Neil Gaiman.

This might not count, since he has so few and won’t have any more, but Tolkien. Not only have I made it a point to get The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and the Silmarillion, and replace them when they wear out (they do), but I take them with me (first thing I pack) whenever I’m going to be anywhere for more than three weeks.

Really, jc? Nausea is one of my all-time favorites!

Just out of curiosity, will you reveal your age? I ask because that book really described a feeling that haunted me throughout much of my 20’s. That may be why I like it so much. I can relate.

Interesting question. Mr. Monkey and I just weeded out the bookshelves last weekend. It was a task long overdue since we are both voracious readers and have collected way more than our share. Here are the authors that are well represented (4 or more titles) among the remaining books:
Elmore Leonard–him
Carl Hiaasen–both of us
Stephen King–mostly me
Tony Hillerman–mostly him
Robert B. Parker–slight edge to me
Barbara Kingsolver–me

And that’s just downstairs in eyeshot (is that a word?) of my 'puter.

John D. Mcdonald, but just the Travis Mcgee series.

He’s in my sig file.

I’m a bibliophile, so I own about 700 hundred books (I recently pared down the collection from 900). I love owning books - to me it’s part of the experiance. So if I read a book I love and I know I want to read it again, I buy it.

I own all of John Irving’s, Stephen King’s, Dean Koontz’s, Alice Hoffman’s, Michael Ondaajte’s, Stephen Dunn’s, Barbara Kingsolver’s, Betty Smith’s, and Ethan Canin’s books. Although Mrs. Smith won’t be writing any more novels anytime soon, I snatch up the others right away.

Of course, I’ll buy a book if I like the cover and the first paragraph, so I’m not a good judge. I own one or two books from many, many authors.

I feel this way about a lot of writers, actually. Some of whom are:

Tom Robbins
Richard Bach
Carl Hiaasen
James Lee Burke
Alice Hoffman
J.K. Rowling

so there

The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. I don’t know how many times I’ve read each book.

I, Claudius by Robert Graves. A heavy read, but well worth the time.

Anything by Anne Rice. Yes, even Merrick. I don’t get why the book got such bad reviews.

The Dark Tower series by Stephen King, and anything related to it (such as Insomnia, which, by the way, is my favorite by him).

The Talisman by Peter Straub and Stephen KIng, soon to it’s sequel. Almost an adult version of The Magician’s Nephew(the curing of the mother part), which brings me to:

The Chronicles of Narnia, by CS Lewis.

After I read a library copy of Charles Finney’s *The Circus of Dr. Lao *(first printing 1935), I simply had to have a copy in the house. So I got the 1982 one from the Limited Editions Club, only 2000 copies printed, with illustrations by Claire Van Vliet, printed in three colors, all the fucking bells and whistles.

But I STILL want a copy of the first version I read, from 1946, with the Boris Artzybasheff drawings.

…the above is only a tiny sampling of my hideous book obsession. I refuse to go on, as it might frighten the young’uns.