Yar, I loves me books!

It has been years since I read the Little House series and as of recently, I own them all again and am really excited to reread them. Last weekend my roommate and I went to a used and new children's book store (I want to live in there and be that woman) and I was absolutely thrilled to find a complete set. I know you can buy them new easily at just about any bookstore, but this was both a matched set (came in a "fancy" cardboard box with illustrations on the sides) and an OLD set - it was the old blue covers I remember from childhood (we had a mix of yellow and blue covers). And the paper was all browned and it smelled like the used books we always bought when I was a kid. Big deal, right? Well, if you know me, you know my dark secret: I'm really particular about my books. It is almost painful to me to own a series of books if they're not all the same edition or if I don't like the edition. I will make do - I'm not quite hardcore (or wealthy) enough - to replace books I already own for the sake of matching a set, but I will try my very very hardest to buy the right edition. I have two sets (two of my favorite children's series, incidentally) where I have one that is out of place. It KILLS me. I also am pretty controlling about the condition. When I lend people hardcover books, I usually keep the dust jacket so nothing happens to it. I refuse to dog-ear pages and it's still hard for me to underline or write in books - even text books I don't like. I have a set of books I have owned since at least early high school, if not before, and they look brand new even though I've read them about 10 times each. Add to that a heavy dose of nostalgia (I LOVED my childhood books) and you've got a girl who has wanted this series for years but refused to buy a shiny plastic-wrapped set from Borders. When I have children, I may end up buying them their own copies of books I already have so that they don't scribble in them or get food on them or bend the corners of the pages. I will be the worst mother. But the best book mother.