@Roas, there are the reading copies, and those you display in your bookcase.
The one you take to the park, which you don’t mind getting if it gets dropped/damaged.
Curious: Do you have a list of hardcovers you are still looking for?
Heh, with the exception of my signed copy of Fire in the Heavens, I’ve always just considered every book I own as read and display, because there is always a memory attached to each of them. Unless it was falling apart, like a few of my Wheel of Time paper backs, I never took my books out of the house. I’ve always been the read at home in comfort kind of guy. And since I can chew up a 400+ page book in a couple of days, the books generally do spend most of their lives on the shelf.
I’m down to my last three, two recovery and one I never had. Dark Force Rising and Last Command are next, but I’m done with my purchasing for the month…unless the copy of Last Command I’m eyeing drops $10…then I’ll snatch it up, but otherwise it can wait til the next month’s budget. And since it came out so late in the runs I never owned a copy of Tatooine Ghost, so I want to get that as well.
After that all I’m missing is Dark Empire. I don’t need that immediately, since it’s a comic and not a novel. Hell, during my original read throughs it was at least a year after I finished the Jedi Academy Trilogy before I finally got my hands on my trade paperback of Dark Empire. Until then I hadn’t had the opportunity to fully read it. I’ve got a good story how I first found out about it on a vacation to MGM Studios and then a contest for all six Platinum grade issues at a Barnes&Noble I thought I had a 100% chance at winning…and was quickly humbled thereafter when I failed miserably.