The problem is, when you are a librarian, a bookbinder, and a writer, people see a book nook in a store and think “ah, this would be the perfect gift!” And then since you now own a book nook, you sort of feel obligated to put it on your shelf whether you wanted it there or not 
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I have to ask: One copy to write in and one to keep pristine? Or a second copy in case you run out of room writing notes in the first?
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That’s right! I’ve not had to spill over into a second copy yet, thank goodness!
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That’s usually how they’re organize in the store…
I’ve finally purchased a bookshelf! Only one shelf so far as stuff in Japanese (other shelves are for anime blu-rays and translated manga and light novels) but I’m happy I can finally share on this thread.
Almost all the Japanese manga I have so far are from Box of Manga, which I enjoy. I’ll probably buy the manga of some favorite series over time but for now I like the surprise of getting something random.
And yes, I know they’re organized backwards(?) but I haven’t decided how I want to order them yet.
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My stash from my recent Japan trip. Luggage was a little heavy.
Edit: almost all the manga are from the ¥100 section if Book Off - once I decided to buy the Blood on the Tracks set I also got the remaining volumes too
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Do the upside down covers signify books you want to read first, or does it have another special meaning?
I’m jealous…
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That signifies that I only slept 3 hours on the flight, and my nap when I got home was interrupted by the cat head-butting me for pats. Oops.
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I get what you mean. I once bough all of Hana Yori Dango in the large Layout format (which was kind of the size of a normal british paperback but heavier) and put them in an open carry on bag with lots of senbei on top. luckly the woman at check in only asked if that was souvenirs and sweets without weighing it, because my normal suitcase was barely in the limit of 34 kg and the books in the bag were at least 7 kg if not more.
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I’m always amazed how cheap Manga are in Japan. Just glancing over some of the volumes, here in Germany you’d pay 7-12€ for a single one of these. Even used they wouldn’t be much cheaper.
Looks like an amazing haul though, enjoy! 
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I think the key is used, and the volume of used books they have there. I could only find slightly older series in the cheap section - Spy Family volumes were all about ¥400-600, and same for シャドーハウス. But stacks of Yotsubato and Tokyo Ghoul etc available.
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(both for translated and untranslated manga)
These arrived from Kinokuniya today:
One book got lost on the way thanks to DHL, but if K refund me the book cost and the shipping cost like they say they will that actually works out pretty nicely…
I really must get around to doing a photo of my bookshelves for this thread as I’m nearly up to five complete shelves now.
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The ‘Medium’ book is interesting because it’s an almost-full-height obi. (Sadly the back got kinda mangled during shipping so I might junk it and stick with the stock cover.)
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I was curious about that! It looked different than the cover I remembered (haven’t read it but it’s in my 積読 pile)
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Yep, there’s apparently a TV dramatisation of it, and I assume they’ve got the actress to recreate the cover pose from the book. Here’s the book and the obi side by side for comparison:
Bonus: obi damage:
(that’s despite the book having been shrink-wrapped…at least the obi protected the cover a bit.)
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Kinda thought the obi was just the narrow strip wrapped around the bottom. The dust cover as a whole is called something else, innit? Wikipedia suggests ブックカバー, though I don’t know if that’s the actual common-use term.
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This isn’t the book’s own cover/dust jacket, which is still on the book on the left; “nearly full height obi” seemed to me like the best description (it’s about 5mm shorter than the book itself). It’s an extra layer that’s been added as promotion for the TV drama. I agree that ‘obi’ is usually the short height thing; this is the first time I’ve seen something like this.
Wikipedia’s article on 帯 says:
カバーのほぼ全面を覆うような帯を「特大帯」「超幅広帯」「全面帯（全面カバー帯）」などと称し、表紙カバーの上から別の図案のカバーを覆うような仕掛けが試みられることもある。
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Right… Just made a post with most of my collection in the POLL thread, thought I’d post here again, it’s mostly in storage these days due to me having less bookcases than I used to, just expand below for full post :
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