A luxury item after all

Okay, so I posted a few days ago about the emergence of books as a new luxury item. I shared the fact that I grew up in a household that was covered in books. I literally have boxes and boxes of books in my childhood bedroom and my parent's attic, including a box each for Star Wars novels and Star Trek novels. My book collection has expanded over several bookshelves, and I never thought of books as luxury items. Sure, I would buy every book in certain series, and I always loved it when the series had a consistent design so that all the books look the same. I have that borderline OCD that wants everything to fit together on my shelf. (I have a huge love/hate relationship with the snapcase vs keepcase issue in my DVD collection.)

But now this post takes a left-hand turn; I might even backtrack over my old position. I just read Carte Blanche by Jeffery Deaver, the newest James Bond novel. I enjoyed it so much I wanted to backtrack and find a copy of the previous Bond novel, Devil May Care. I had it in my head that I would go pick up a paperback copy of the book, but then I saw the hardcover for sale. And it looked like this:

Now, that is an attractive book design. And when I saw it, I appreciated the cover, the image, the logos, and even the way that the black-clad figure (presumably James Bond) wraps around the spine and continues onto the back cover. The back cover (not pictured) has a large quote from the novel, in which M welcomes 007 back to active duty. It's such an attractive book, especially with the dust jacket over the black book, and it will look great on the bookshelves. I specifically chose to buy the book in hardcover, so I guess that books might be a luxury item after all.

Of course, since I'm still unemployed, I did not drop the money on this pretty hardcover.

I'll wait for the paperback to show up on the sale shelf.