In cataloguing my books tonight, I realized that I had duplicate copies of Homer's Illiad. Now, first, let me say that yes…I was cataloguing my books. Because I am just that damn cool. And it was hella fun. If anyone else should want to do it, I was using LibraryThing. It shows you pictures! And you can make a virtual bookshelf! And tag books! And…yeah! (And should anyone want to see my progress thus far, lookie here.)
Ahem. Anyway, so yeah. I noticed that I have in my possession two different, old paperback editions of the Illiad. Now, I'll often buy duplicates of books. It's no big thing. I like having different editions of books. I think between here and West Virginia I have up to five copies of Mrs. Dalloway. I have multiple copies of Frankenstein, The Great Gatsby, 1984, etc. And and one time, I believe I had seven editions (with different chapters, based on when it was released) of A Clockwork Orange. Some included the extra Nadsat dictionary, too. The thing is, I usually know that I have duplicates. This time…I didn't. And I know that I've had those books since I was in Huntington – which would make them 4 years in my possession. Just damn weird to not notice something like that. How many moves…how many times do you have to box your books up before you pick up on stuff?
As an aside, it's especially freaky to find out that Wes and I have a lot of the same weird editions of books. All of them are ones that we've picked up in secondhand stores and stuff, but managed to have the same damn copy. It's like we're operating from a single hive mind…