It was a discworld book. It had to happen eventually!
Jingo.
Been there, done that. I once was reading a book and realized, about 150 pages in, that I’ve read it before!
I don’t want to think about the number of duplicate books I’ve bought over the years. As I’m unpacking my library after my last move, I occasionally find books that I’d forgotten I’d bought within the last few years but never had time to read, and then bought another copy after I moved. I now have a policy of not buying any books published before 2006 unless they’re by someone I hadn’t heard of then, thus lessening the chance that I already have a copy.
Good policy. I sometimes buy a “new” book from a favorite author at the airport only to discover once I am on a plane that it is an old book with a new cover. It makes for a long plane ride.
I once was halfway through a book (The Club Dumas, by Arturo Perez Reverte) before I realized that I’d already seen the movie (The Ninth Gate, starring Johnny Depp). But that’s more a sign of how badly the movie diverged from its source material than my own inattentiveness as a reader.
My students tend to benefit when I do that, which is often. The new copy usually goes into rotation in my classroom, on the “You Ought To Be Reading These” shelf.
This chaps my ass too, especially when it’s the same book but with a new title as well as the new cover.
I have three copys of a book on “How to improve your memory”
Really should read one.
My husband looked at our bookshelves once and noticed duplicate books. The extra copy of each went into the “give away” box. I think it happens with avid book buyers at least once or twice.
This has happened to me more than once. I’ve got two Penguin editions of Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica, for instance.
What’s REALLY bad is when your memory lapse leads you to get someone the same Christmas gift two years running. I’ve done this.
Yeah, I’ve done this, too. Usually when an old title by a favorite author is reprinted with a new cover. Or worse, when the author becomes popular, taking a couple of her old, shorter novels and repackaging them as one longer book with a new title. I’ve really had to think in bookstores and look at publication dates to figure out if I’ve already read this one…
I just re-read a few Tony Hillerman books – Dance Hall of the Dead, Listening Woman and The Blessing Way. Though a few of the scenes seemed a little familiar, like a déjà vu, I had absolutely no fucking idea where the story was going, let alone who did it, or why. 'sall new to me.
This isn’t good, is it?
I thought I was the only one who did this.
I’m not alone! Maybe that’s a bad thing.
RR
Happens to me all the time when I visit the used book store without my lists. When I have them, I often find the book I check is already on my shelves.
Having about 1,000 things in my to read queue is part of it too - probably 300 of them being books.
I just did that with one of my geek books. To be fair to me, I bought the original so that one of my people could use it here at work and he never gave it back to me. Then when mine came in he said: Oh, I have your other copy of that…
I’m the same way. I’ll likely remember bits of dialogue or particular scenes from a book I read years ago, and I’ll remember if I liked it or not, but I won’t have the slightest idea of which way the plot turns.
It makes re-reading a pleasure.
I had an elderly friend who would read all of Agatha Christie’s books in order of publication. By the time he got done with the last one he had completely forgotten the first ones, so he read them all again.
He wasn’t senile. She just wrote so damn many mysteries–mostly with interchangeable plots–that they all blended together in his memory after a while and he couldn’t pick out such specific details as whodunit!
One of the ways you can tell you’re a serious reader: You buy books you already own. If you can remember everything you’ve read, you’re not a serious reader.
Another way you can tell: You start making lists of books you already own and carrying them when you shop. When I go to science fiction conventions I carry two lists, one of Doctor Who novels (a master list, with the ones I own OR can read online checked off) and the other of the SF anthologies I own. I have a great weakness for anthologies, and even if I could memorize their titles it wouldn’t help; I have two books called Future Crimes that are quite different.
Thank you.
You’re sure you haven’t? I mean really, really sure?