Excluding textbooks for classes, I bought this for ~$300 (several several years ago as a special treat)
Most of my collection is thrifted/bought from garage sales (for a quarter to a dollar usually) but I do have a handful of nicer ones.
I got Brandon Sanderson’s Way of Kings leather-bounds, which were definitely the most I’ve spent on a book, but my second place is more interesting.
I found a copy of a book called, Our Lost Explorers: the Jeannette Arctic Expedition, at a local used bookstore. Got it for $50, but I’ve seen it listed for way more online in similar condition. It’s the collected accounts of the crew of a ship lost in the Arctic, as well as everyone that went to look for them, and how the survivors eventually made it home (on foot). It was released in 1882, like, as it was all happening, the book is illustrated, and the cover is hand painted. My copy originally belonged to a school
I spent like $100 on C++ books. Still got them, somewhere.
$200+ on a textbook (many years ago, even) which netted me $25 when I sold it back to the college. What a racket.
I have a large box of technical books. C, C++, Java, Linux admin, UNIX, etc. My local bookstore no longer takes them. What do I do with them? Book burning party? :-/
I had to buy this giant Economics textbook, only for the teacher to create video lessons per chapter about which parts from it can be scrapped. Over three quarters ended up scrapped.
A racket indeed.
Mine are helping hold up a shelf somewhere.
loadbearing book.
$300 for the art book from Control
Worth it
I’m curious what piqued your interest in this book. Was it an engaging read?
My most expensive is probably Dindal’s Soil Biology Guide (1990), which cost around $300 as well. The print quality is pathetically bad given the price I paid, the spine came off only a few months after buying. Wiley Blackwell 🤢
$300 book should come with a warranty
It’s a set of commentaries on The Book of Documents/尚书, an ancient compilation of the histories of early Chinese dynasties. That text is very laconic and low on detail, but this book adds a lot of interesting stories in its “interpretation” of what Confucius (supposedly) wrote.
I have an interest in historiography, especially Chinese, and relatively few ancient Chinese texts are available in English translation (especially if you give a shit about accuracy, don’t get me started on the I-Ching…)
It’s amazing how rich and ancient China’s literary history is. I should make more of an effort to get into Chinese writing, all I’ve read is Shi Naian’s Water Margin which was great fun. Maybe Confucius’ Analects would be a good place to start with the really old stuff.
The Analects is pretty approachable, although there can be variation in translation. I’ve been reading portions of it through a Classical Chinese primer and you have to make quite a few decisions when you translate it into English. One of the weird things is that nouns can act as verbs, so something like “father father, son son” means “a father acting as a father, a son acting as a son.”
The big thing is to be very wary of any translations of Daoist thought or the I-Ching. I would only trust academic translations. Daoism tends to attract cranks who understand it as a hippie thing, when it is more complicated than that.
Ancient books aren’t supposed to be engaging
I just spent $60 on a book that will probably cost me about $150 to get rebound.
Its John Dillon’s “The Middle Platonist’s” and its been really fascinating to read it as part of my desire to be educated on the history of Platonism and its eventual turn into a religion.
Its inspired me to start now a couple modern Plato clubs and I want to give my personal copy the love it deserves as the reprint is ass lol.
Here’s a pic of it
The red copy is the library copy I was working out of when I first started Justin Sledges middle platonism seminar. The blue is The modern reprint and the page usage is atrocious lol. I can’t wait to get it rebound and cut down normally
The modern reprint must be the special Fermat edition.
I spent about 4k on leather bound books for authors Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan
I spent
$120$282 on the paperback set of WoT and that is also my most expensive “single” book purchase.Edit: Nope I lied. I spent $120 on the ebook set, the paperbacks were more expensive.
That’s a great deal imo. I’ve already hunted down first editions for each book, but I found them all at thrift shops so I really lucked out too.
I bought a hustler from my friends older brother for $50 in high school.
I bought a signed leather bound edition of Ender’s Game for $220 in 2001. I sold it in 2019 for $1500. I also have all but one of Donald Grant editions of Stephen King’s Dark Tower books (the one I’m missing cost $600 in 2001 and is likely many thousands now) for roughly $100 each back in the early 2000s. Most are worth a few hundred now. I have a lot of old Stephen King first editions that are worth a few hundred each.
I was gifted a first edition The Pearl by Steinbeck that is worth $3000 now. It was a special gift from my mom, so I’ll never sell that. I also know whatever she did pay back then would have been a lot for her, so it’s even more special.
Personally spent? Around $15? Definitely between 10-15.
Most expensive book I have? Probably around $40-50 brand new.
I don’t see any reason to buy expensive sets.
Tolkien was my reason. Well, would have been if my mom hadn’t bought me the beautiful integral edition of LOTR with the Alan Lee drawings. It retails for 300€+.
Personally I’ve dropped 100 bucks for two graphic novels (it was “Les Cités Obscures”, I just fucking love Schuiten’s drawings). My mom completed the set for my next Christmas + bday.
This made me realize I’m lucky to have a mother who loves books so much. If there’s a nice book I just know I will get it as a gift eventually 😄
Depends on definition of book. I have bought (and read!) the Encyclopedia Britannica. Was 7000DM, about 3500 dollar plus 40 years of inflation.
X-Men #4 (1st appearance of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch) ran me something like $4,000? I forget exactly.
I bought the Compact Oxford English Dictionary (the one with micrographic text) as a gift for a friend who was a linguistics major. It was also around $300.
About £40 importing a copy of Relativity Visualised. I absolutely love it.
Then I spent about $90 getting a copy of the Red Wheelbarrow Mr Robot book. Im a huge fan of the series.
Im looking at World Book sets on ebay. Brand new, they go for around a grand. So im looking at ebay for older sets, they run a couple hundred it seems. Gonna get a set for the house for my kid to use.
My husband got me the Game of Thrones book series a couple years ago, I dont think theyre cheap, but most books I have cost less than $20.
Early 00’s I bought Dante’s Divine Comedy in full size, parchment paper, stitched volumes, with paper covers. It’s the most luxury print/pulp look I’ve ever stumbled upon. The three books set me back by €60 then. Adjusting for inflation, I’d risk they be priced at around €100 today.
