Multiple copies

[firstfrost]

So, when I was packing things up to move a year ago, I noted that, between me, tirinian, and harrock, we had four Diplomacy sets. And none of them were mine. This seemed a bit excessive, especially since tirinian wouldn't let me throw away the most decrepit of the sets. I could see needing two, one for long-term games, one for pick-up games (like we have a lot of pickup games of Diplomacy...). And maybe another spare in case one wants to play Icelandic Noodle Diplomacy by email at the same time. But four? Four is more than any three people, including one who doesn't play games with countries in them, could possibly need.

Anyway, as Arlo Guthrie would say, that's not what I came to talk to you about. I came to talk to you about the books.

I've been cataloging our library. It's goofy and obsessive and tedious... but it's fun. And it causes me to notice when there are multiple copies of a book. Now, I knew tirinian and I both had copies of a lot of the Doonesbury books, and I knew we had two copies of Eats, Shoots and Leaves, and so on - but now I've found a book we have four copies of. Not Harry Potter, not the Bible, not Calvin and Hobbes - the book that we seem to have been collecting fast and furious is (wait for it)... Old Goriot, by Honore de Balzac. What the heck?

harrock's copy is filled with bookmarks with notes, so at least one of us has read the darned thing. I'm pretty sure I haven't. (Three different translations, for anyone who's curious. It took me a while to realize we have quite as many as we do, because half of them are called Pere Goriot instead.)

Comments

Diplomacy Sets

[twe.livejournal.com]

While, I suspect tirinian may own two copies (the decrepit one is somehow special), and no doubt harrock owns one as well, the reason you had four was that you also had mine, which I've now reclaimed.

If you're looking to get rid of a copy of Eats, Shoots and Leaves, though, I'd happily take one off your hands.

Re: Diplomacy Sets

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

If you're looking to get rid of a copy of Eats, Shoots and Leaves, though, I'd happily take one off your hands.

Sure, I'll give it to Mike at lunch. :)

Re: Diplomacy Sets

[twe.livejournal.com]

Cool!

catalog

[kirisutogomen.livejournal.com]

I catalogued my parents' books, created a dummy Amazon account, and checked the I Own This box for each of them. Now I have a well-informed Gift Suggestion Device.

Of course, it required searching for ~900 books one at a time.

Re: catalog

[twe.livejournal.com]

Couldn't you just type in the isbn #'s? (Rather than search)

Re: catalog

[kirisutogomen.livejournal.com]

In the immortal words of Cicero, "Doh!"

A lot of the books are my mother's from South Africa and have no ISBNs, but yeah, that would have been a lot easier.

[mama-pipa.livejournal.com]

I was looking at Eats, Shoots and Leaves in Borders this weekend... any good?

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

If you like grammar rants, if you cringe at things like "Pizza Slice's $1.00" it's a lot of fun.

Old Goriot

[harrock.livejournal.com]

Don't look now, but actually, that book was left behind by a revolving-door tenant at Twinkie Towers. Never read it.

Re: Old Goriot

[desireearmfeldt]

That reassures me: I was trying to re-imagine you as having assiduously read Balzac, and mostly failing. :)

Re: Old Goriot

[jdbakermn.livejournal.com]

So what is the book about? I mean if there were four copies, then someone (if not 4 someones) thought it good enough to buy.

Re: Old Goriot

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

Darned if I know. I did decide I had to read it since it seemed to be the Official Book of the House, but I haven't done so yet.

(Since the original posting, the Bible has pulled ahead. I find this vaguely reassuring. At least I know what the Bible says.)

Re: Old Goriot

[kirisutogomen.livejournal.com]

Don't be silly. Nobody knows what the Bible says.

Cataloging

[jdbakermn.livejournal.com]

So are you using a spreadsheet, or something else? Do you have a barcode scanner and are just scanning in the bar code on the back of the book? I've been wanting to do this myself for quite a while, but give up after about 75 books and start fiddling with my spreadsheet again.

Of course, then about every 2 years I donate about 2 years of books to the local library, so that would probably play havoc with my inventory. But then again, it'd keep me from buying books that I've read before. I bet I do that 5 times a year. :)

Re: Cataloging

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

I'm using software called "Readerware" - you can input books by hand, but its best feature is that you can input the ISBN and it'll look up the book details and cover art and so on at your choice of web sites (amazon being the easy default). I did buy a CueCat (very very low end bar code scanner) and it works okay for inputting the bar codes, which can be converted to ISBN, except in the case of comic book type graphic novels, which use a different system and all convert to the same Batman graphic novel if you try that. :)

I don't so much buy books that I've read before, but I *do* buy books that I've bought because they looked good and put in my "books to read" pile. That's very embarassing.