Hardcovers don't fit in a purse, and it's hard to take three hardcovers with you for a weekend trip.

There were two books in question and I decided to get rid of one and keep the other. Thanks for helping me make the decision!

I have another sort of odd book question. Does anyone have an absolute favorite bookcase for storing mass market paperbacks, so that they can be stacked on their sides to maximize space?

I'm of the all-one-type school. All hardcovers, or all trades, or all mass-markets, whichever.

See, I don't care. Of course, I have a different problem, which is if I find a different edition of one of my favorite books, I feel compelled to own it. Let us not speak of how many different versions of Something Wicked This Way Comes are sitting on my bookshelves. Let's just say that every time I go to Powell's, I go to the rare book room to ogle the 1st edition hardback of Dark Carnival (the original title of SWTWC). Someday it will be mine. Someday.

One of my Harry Potter books is large print and it kind of bugs me (it was the only one they had!) but not enough to buy a replacement.

I have a different problem, which is if I find a different edition of one of my favorite books, I feel compelled to own it.

I have this problem too. TCG never questions my book obsession, except for questioning just how many different editions of Middlemarch one person needs.

my collection is so haphazard. except the forensic books...they don't come in paperback, and could be used as the most ironic weapons ever.

I have no book fetishes. No that's not true. I would love to find LM Montgomery's books in the first edition that I read them in. Also, I hate musty books. So if choosing between editions in a used book store, I will always pick the newest one. And you will often see me smelling books to see if they would drive me crazy when I read them. I look at leather bound books and only see future red rot.

When I was a small child I was very aware that library books pass through many hands and was pretty much compulsive about washing my hands after touching library books.

Question for you all: I'm trying to think of a fairy tale where it's the husband who would pay the penalty for guessing or prying into his wife's secrets. Sort of a reverse-Bluebeard, but with the penalty being losing his wife or his wife and children.

I seem to think something like this does exist, but I cannot for the life of me think of what it is.

The one with the woman with the ribbon around her neck, and when the husband unties the ribbon, her head falls off?

Or the story of Orpheus and Eurydice?