Divided Houses: The Hundred Years War Volume III

[Brendan]

The much-anticipated release of the third volume of Jonathan Sumption's history of the Hundred Years War has occurred, and I have placed the hardcover edition in my Amazon shopping basket. This volume covers 1369 - 1393, and in anticipation I intend to re-rad the first two volumes as well as Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror, as I think this volume covers de Coucy.

Now I have a slight aesthetic concern: my copies of the first two volumes (Trial by Battle and Trial by Fire) are in paperback, so acquiring the hardcover edition will alter the appearance of the series on my shelves. A very minor point, I know - and hopefully the next volume won't take ten years - but I wonder if it's worth the wait and discount for paperback.

Anyone else ever worry about the aesthetics of book series on shelves?

PS. The books are excellent: no other comprehensive treatment of the conflicts exists in the English language: British QC Sumption wanted to read one, looked high and low, then figured since it didn't exist he'd have to write the first himself.

Edit: terrible grammar

[BWV 1080]

cool I read the first one, which I picked up at used bookstore then balked on the second after discovering there was only one more book in the series

[jbuck919]

I have exactly the same "problem" with the Oxford History of the United States. I wait for each volume to come out in paperback before I order it. Saves a little money, too. Of course, for me it is not an immediate cover-to-cover read situation so I'm not sacrificing much by waiting.

[John F]

Depends on how urgently you want to read the book, doesn't it?

There's no telling how long it will take for a hardcover book to be reissued in paperback. Even the publisher often can't predict it for sure. (I've been there.) The hardcover version has to sell well enough to justify paperback treatment at all - in this particular case, vol. 3 of a series whose previous volumes are already in paper, I suppose the publisher has decided that it will - but sales have to decline far enough that the paperback won't kill significant sales of the more profitable hardcover, which would bother the booksellers too. So it all depends.

[Cosima__J]

Maybe you should just wait for the movie