If you have been following me for a while on my social media, you should know by now that I have a problem… Not only do I buy books or rather hoard them at a very alarming speed, (let’s say at least 2-3 books a week… ), I am also obsessed with collecting different editions of The Bronze Horseman series by Paullina Simons from all over the world!
First of all, this series is my favourite of all time. I don’t think there is another series that touches my heart and soul quite like The Bronze Horseman does. It has shaken me and changed my entire reading tastes. It has changed me! If you go to the first three posts in my blog, you can read my review and understand why this series means the world to me.
Now, I don’t quite remember how it happened but me and my best friend, who happens to be one of the biggest Bronze Horseman fans, started to collect different editions of The Bronze Horseman from summer 2016. It started with just the English versions. The first book was published in 2000 so there are A LOT of English versions all over the world. It took us probably one year to get every single English edition that is out there in the wild safely on our shelves.
And then we started to look for foreign editions. It just happened that I love to travel, so it has now become “a thing” that whenever I go to a new country, I will get The Bronze Horseman from the local bookshops… It is not always easy as sometimes it is very hard to find especially when they were published so long ago. I managed to get the Chinese edition from Beijing, China and the German edition from Berlin, Germany.
Now, I have to thank my best friend Nicole as she is THE one who searched the internet high and low to find the rest of the foreign versions. It feels like a job on its own as:
a) we need to find the ISIN, THIS IS SO HARD!
b) once it is found, we need to search the net to actually find the book
c) once the book is found, we need to contact the seller to ensure it is indeed the version we are looking for
d) once confirmed, we need to figure out how to bloody use the website to order as more often than not they are in foreign language
e) once we have ordered it (and prayed it actually is paid correctly) then we wait… we wait and wait and hope that the book will eventually turn up!
Honestly, looking back a lot of times it felt like gambling! You never know what / when / if they will turn up! But I have to say we have had such a blast and fun time doing it! It is a journey itself and I love every single moment of it. So far I have collected Chinese, German, Czech, French, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Hungarian, Dutch, Russian, Serbian and of course lots of English versions. I have over 80 copies of The Bronze Horseman series. Crazy huh?
Do you also collect different edition of your favourite books? I would love to hear about your story!
Sissi Reads 