A year or two ago I learned of the Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize, which is exclusively open to young women (30 & under, in the US). Frankly I had never considered that building a personal book collection might be something other people would notice and care about, but when I read about the contestants' collections, I get it!! I love that they explicitly do not care about the collections' monetary value, it's all about "their originality and their success in illuminating their chosen subjects."

link

This is not a prize I'm eligible for, but I found it interesting. I "collect" books in the sense that I've been building and curating my personal library for 25+ years, but what percentage of those books would rise to the level of a specific Collection? Because my interests and therefore my books are all over the place... Reading about this prize made me think about my own collection a little more and start noticing more themes emerging in what I've been curating! Here are some of the micro-collections I've identified so far within the larger number of books I own:

— instructional books on mending/clothing repair, and more general sewing books that include information on mending — different versions of The Three Billy Goats Gruff (I was the Littlest Goat in a kindergarten production and am still disproportionately fond of the story) — books on gender in the French language/le langage inclusif/queering French — vintage horror paperbacks (paperbacks from Hell) — fairy tales & folklore from around the world — different editions of Peter Pan — my own personal Moby-Dick curriculum for further reading — big ol' artist retrospective coffee table books (these are exorbitantly priced if you buy them new but I pick them up for pennies all the time at library sales. Imo after visiting museums/seeing artwork in person, this is the next best way to experience it. Exponentially better than the internet) — old DK Eyewitness/Stephen Biesty's Cross-Sections/Where's Waldo?/I Spy-type books (my inner child flips their shit over this kind of stuff, lol) — weird Maine: cryptozoology, ghost stories, folklore, etc — regional field guides to different types of wildlife and plants

There are also obviously certain authors/anthologists/series I collect (vintage Agatha Christie, old Alfred Hitchcock anthologies, Nancy Drew, etc)

I am curious, what do you collect, and why??