Stacking the Shelves # 33 - The Harry Potter Edition

Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can Ainclude books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks! Visit Tynga's Reviews to learn more about this weekly meme.

Welcome to very special edition of Stacking the Shelves!  This is my way of saying - I've finally purchased the Harry Potter series!  Some of you already know that I've never read the books, and this is probably one of the biggest sins a blogger can commit.

I decided on a whim to purchase the books, and I originally planned to purchase the paperbacks.  (I love the look of the new Scholastic set.)  But then I thought: No, this occasion calls for something BIGGER.  So, it would have to be hardcovers.  But which set to buy?

There were the original covers, of course:

There is also this "adult" version.  The covers look cheap - almost self-pub quality, IMO, and I read some reviews that claim the font is difficult to read:

And then there is this Bloomsbury UK edition, published in 2011, and it looked PERFECT.  I love the stark white with the gold lettering.  Another HUGE selling point is that the UK versions of the books retain all of Rowling's original writing:

Now, my next question was: How do I get it in the cheapest way possible?  The logical option seemed to be The Book Depository, but it was unavailable.  I headed over to e-Bay and found a couple of these sets for sale from what appeared to be reputable sellers.  But I've been afraid of e-Bay ever since, years ago, I purchased a bunch of discontinued Stila lipsticks from another supposedly reputable seller, and half of them came with a "Sample" sticker stuck on them.  Gross.

But I was ready to go for the books until it occurred to me to check Amazon UK.  They were substantially cheaper than the e-Bay price, and the shipping was only $7.  Even better, the set arrived in perfect condition just over a week, much faster than the e-Bay vendor estimated.

The set comes in this beautiful box:

I love the front of the books:

And the backs:

Don't expect to see reviews any time soon, because I have no idea when I'll get a chance to start reading them.  When I have a break in my schedule, I'm going to read Game of Thrones.  But still, I'm so happy to finally have these!

I was so pleased with my first Amazon UK experience that I made another purchase of something even MORE exciting just this week.  Can you guess what it is???  If Amazon's shipping estimate is accurate, you should be seeing this mystery purchase in next week's STS!

Let me know what hit your shelves this week!  And let me know what you think of the various HP paperback and hardcover sets that are available.  Which, if any, do you own, or which would you love to own?

      ***While you're here, check out my giveaways!***