Today, after more readings than I can count, my original hard-cover edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows split at the spine and began to fall apart at the seams.
It's not about the quality of the novel; it's about the quality of the book.
So, with a gift-card I recently received for my birthday, I marched out to my local bookstore and bought a new, paperback copy. This will be my official reading copy, until it eventually falls apart too.
At some point, I will buy a complete set of the hard-cover books as my show copies, my bookshelf editions, but not right now. I'm considering trying to find English first editions of each -- and that will take a lot of time and a lot more money.
For now, I will be a little bit in awe of the fact that J.K. Rowling wrote a book that I like so much I literally read it to pieces.
