How Many Copies...

of a single book might a person NEED? (answer: at least 6)

You only see four here--I have a purse-size edition tucked somewhere in a purse, as well as the full text in my latest F. Scott Reader (1963, Scribner's Sons).

All of these were purchased second (or third) hand (I like to recycle), ranging in price from $1 to $3 (the hardback version from the '50s).

side note: how many parenthetical comments are too many in any one sentence? three?

It has become a sick obsession, maybe. But grabbing a used copy every time I see one is better than--stealing or peeping or silently following YOU around. Right?

The other day a library volunteer was looking over my recent collection of "slightly used" gems and commented that I may be an English major or professor (wildest dreams).

My heart leapt up (I'm crediting that phrasing to Emily Dickinson, because it's in a poem or a letter of hers I've read somewhere). I'm no F. Scott scholar. I was only "taught" Fitzgerald circa [year removed] in Honors English my junior year of high school.

side note: I still have the notes from aforementioned high school class--we did Dickinson as well.
The Great Gatsby isn't even my favorite book. But I do enjoy reading all of the markings made by those who flipped through the pages before me. It's like taking a class in the novel taught by the teacher/reader/professor...leading the discussion at the time.

I want to compile these notes. I want to re-read them and add them to a master edition. I want to deconstruction it all, then add it up and see what happens. I am a nerd (who is avoiding current homework, of course).

Also Grabbed:
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
The Wasteland & Other Poems by T. S. Eliot
Collected Lyrics by Edna St. Vincent Millay
The Awakening by Kate Chopin (norton critical edition)
Books of the Three Virtues by Christine De Pisan
The Portable James Joyce :)
Heath Anthology of American Literature
(#12 in my literature anthology hording)

See! I will require my own wall-o-bookshelves one day! It's practically a goal!

~~J