July 15, 2008

Book OCD

I am a little bit OCD about certain things. My books and DVD collections are alphabetized (books, obviously by author, then title unless part of a series). My clothing in my closet is color coordinated going from white (the lightest) to black (the darkest). I really like things to be at right angles.

But these things are quite common in people. I wonder if my fellow book nerds out there share this semi-OCD-like feature?

I love purchasing entire series of books. If one is missing, it drives me absolutely crazy, especially if said missing book is one of the middle books. That's not my OCD thing though. My OCD thing is that I like the entire series to be the same. That is, if I bought the first book in hardback, all following books need to be in hardback also if they're in my library. The same applies if it is paperback. My Harry Potter books are all hardbacked. The "Anne" books by Posie Graeme-Evans are all paperbacked. My Outlander/Lord John books are all paperbacked also.

It drives me nuts that I have the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books (I know they're immature, but the message is good!) and that two of them are paperback and two are hardback. Maybe it's crazy, but that's me.

The problem with this is that I adore Diana Gabaldon's Outlander and Lord John books. Since I bought them in paperback, I need to continue to buy them in paperback... which means I have to wait a long long long time for it to come out since they aren't released at the same time as the hardbacks.

Oh, the troubles of being OCD...

2 comments:

Passages to the Past said...

Oh good, I'm not the only one!

Bob Klass said...

I have an obsessive-compulsive disorder that is a corollary of the book thing - I like dead artists. Authors, musicians, painters, whatever. Once they are dead, you can completely catalog their work. Sicko, eh?

Have you considered a career in library science?