Reply #55: I think it's in the nature of books and reading to

[themadstork]

generously support those writers you like best. I shell out the money to buy the expensive hardback editions of my favorite authors' work, and I enjoy doing it. Sometimes I'll buy multiple copies if I can afford to, and maybe give one away, or keep one as a cleqn copy and one as an annotated copy.

As an example, I bought Wallace's The Pale King in both hardcover and electronic form. He's not even alive anymore, but I like feeling like I'm supporting those whom he cared for. Or, buying two copies of Vollmann's hugely expensive Imperial pretty much robbed me of saved "having fun" cash for the better part of a semester, but I want Vollmann out there doing his thing in the world, and it felt very satisfying--certainly much more so than paying to see District 9, or whatever flick was big then.