Replacing old books with new copies...

B.D. Skunkworks

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I'm looking to replace my old, beaten, and all around worn out volumes with minty fresh replacements. Primary examples include my Harry Potter collection. Book one, paperback, is positively shredded. There's a huge rip down the spine making the title unintelligible. Books two and three, hardcover, have long since been divested of their cover sleeves and are just in phenomenally bad shape. They also bear crayon scribbles on random pages here and there from my sister who was a baby at the time.
And my Dragon Prince books (Melanie Rawn). Both books one and two are damaged beyond repair. Hell, book two is actually in two distinct pieces having been read so many times.
And despite all this...once they are replaced...I know I'm going to continue to read the old withered copies. The new ones will just end up looking pretty on the shelf. I guess its's just their age and weather-beaten characteristics that give them sentimental value to me. All the rips, tears, smudges, and missing covers give them a timeless character that I just can't stand to part with.
Anyone else done this with their book collection or feel the same way about their old volumes?
 

Alessandra Kelley

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When the children were little I used to read them Terry Pratchett's "Hogfather" every Thanksgiving-New Year (it's a long book!), the cheap US mass-market paperback edition with its ugly, gaudy red-and-white striped cover.

Now we have much nicer copies (yes, plural. it's one of our "lending" books). But we've kept the now-tattered old wood pulp thing, garish cover and all.

(But tbh, most of the time we just trade up. Shelf space is tight.)
 

Sophia

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Yes! The books I have loved for many years, I have bought new copies of. They sit unread on the shelf. I can't bear to part with the old, dog-eared copies, read by myself and a parent who has passed away. There are just too many memories attached to them to do it.
 

Bacchus

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I've never replaced any of my well-thumbed favourites, but I have supplemented many with Kindle versions so I can carry my library around with me!
 

B.D. Skunkworks

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Lovely responses. Too many good times spent with our old books to just cast them aside. And many more memories to come I'm sure.
 

mrsmig

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If I love a book - love it so much that I've read it to pieces - I'll sometimes replace it. A friend gave me a hardbound copy of To Kill A Mockingbird when my old paperback edition was falling to bits. My paperback of The Once and Future King is now coming apart, and if I could find a good hardback copy, I'd buy it.
 

Siri Kirpal

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Sat Nam! (Literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

When I replace a book--and I do every now and then--I usually give the old copy away. I may get teary-eyed when reading, but I don't get that way about the hardcopies themselves.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal