Physics Books
I love books.

I entered a book collecting contest sponsored by the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia.

Now I'm a prize winning collector of physics books.

My prizes were, in order from most awesome to pretty sweet:

1. A tour of the "Vault" at the Special Collections Library of UVa by it's former director Christian Dupont.
   I got to see the original hand written notes/manuscripts of "Leaves of Grass" by Walt Whitman, 
   The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner, "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck, & much more!

2. Three of my books (Feynman's Lectures Vol. 1, Panofsky & Phillip's "Classical Electricity & Magnetism", 
   and Purcell's "Electricity & Magnetism") were displayed about 10 ft away from a copy of the 
   Declaration of Independence that was printed on July 5, 1776 by John Dunlap, the official printer for 
   the Continental Congress and was once owned by both Marquis De Lafayette & George Washington!

3. Rare Book School Scholarship

4. I was humbled & honored just to be eligible for the Collegiate Book-Collecting Championship sponsored by Fine Books & Collections Magazine.

5. $400 of prize money & gift certificates

I now write a blog about physics books: On Physics Books

Timeline
2008-03-28 First Prize, BSUVA Bi-Annual Student Book Collecting Contest

2008-04-01 cville (alt weekly paper), Issue #20.14 :: 04/01/2008 - 04/07/2008, Arts: Curtain Calls (p. 35 print edition)
           "Alphabet Snoop" by Brendan Fitzgerald: "47 Down: Physics, Tibet and books"

2008-04-14 UVa Today (a web product of the Office of Public Affairs)
           "Physics Student's Personal Library Wins University of Virginia Book-Collecting Contest" by Matt Kelly

2008-09-01 Fine Books & Collections (bimonthly magazine), September/October 2008 Issue (p.X print edition)
           "Champion Book Collectors" by Scott Brown: 1st place, 2nd & 3rd place, all contestants, sponsors

2009-01-04 The New York Times (daily newspaper), Education Life, Trendspotting (p.37 sunday print edition)
           "Collectors' Items" by Amanda M. Fairbanks: Sole Mates (p.1), Sole Mates (p.2), Vinology (p.3), Vinology (p.4), 
           Quantum of Solace (p.5), Quantum of Solace (p.6)

2009-01-09 symmetry breaking (a joint Fermilab/SLAC blog), 1:24pm "Everything you wanted to know about physics text books" by Tona Kunz

2009-01-16 Science (weekly journal of the AAAS), Volume 323, Number 5912 (p.317 print edition), Newsmakers 
           "On Campus" edited by Jennifer Couzin (interview by Adrian Cho)

2009-01-26 The Cavalier Daily (daily student newspaper at UVa), January 26, 2009, Section B, Life, page B2
           "Mastering physics by the book" by Lyssa Cleary

2009-??-?? Physics World (monthly magazine of the IoP)

FAQ
Here are my replies to some frequently asked questions:

Why did you select physics textbooks as a collection subject and when?
I started collecting in college.  It was mainly to help me learn physics. I found that 
every book had its own strengths and weaknesses, so I kept on acquiring different books 
on the same subject.  Eventually it got a little out of hand, and I was starting to look 
for books just to complete a set or to see how they changed from edition to edition.
What attracted you to this?
It's fun and satisying.  I have an interest in how ideas come about and change historically.  
A great place to track that kind of development in physics is how different physical ideas 
are conceptualized and explained in textbooks over time.  My favorite example of this is 
quantum mechanics. Physicists' pedagogical approach and interpretation of this subject has 
changed alot in the last 100 years or so, and it's all conveniently packaged in textbooks.
Why did you enter the competition and how did you feel about winning?
I happened to run across the annoucement in the Cav Daily.  I had never seen a contest so 
precisely tuned to my interests and strengths - I thought to myself that only an idiot with 
over 300 physics books would pass this up!

It was a big surprise that I won, because, really, it's just a bunch of physics books.  Most 
people, even ones in the physics department, don't care.  When I found out about the incredible 
collections of Chris Bell and Heather Burns (both of whom I barely edged out), it really blew 
me away. Considering the amazing competition, I consider it a great honor.
What is your favourite textbook?
My favorite textbook (or book of any kind) is Purcell's Electricity &
Magnetism.  IMHO, it is the most beautiful physics book ever written.
I joke with my friends that it's the closest that anyone has ever come
to the platonic ideal of a "Physics Textbook."
Why did you start the collection? How many do you have now?
At first it was just to help me better understand the material from my
physics courses in college (Caltech) and then later to pass the
qualifying exam in grad school (UVa).  Different books have different
strengths and it was nearly impossible to find a single book that
explained everything really well.  Luckily, the required textbooks for
a given class would recommend books for further study.  I would track
down those books and then the process would repeat itself.  At some
point I started buying books just to complete a set (Sommerfeld's
lectures are a good example) - that's when I knew I had undergone a
phase transition into a collector (or a "serious problem" according to
my girlfriend).

One point I should make is that the goal of my is collection is to
learn physics.  As a consequence, few of my books are rare or old.
Rare books a prohibitively expensive for a graduate student budget.
Old books use a antiquated notation and are sometimes just plain
wrong.

At this point I would say that I have 360 +/- 5 books.  (The large
uncertainty is due to the fact that I haven't updated my list in a
while and I often loan out my books.)
Where do you keep the textbooks?
In my office at UVa - I'm lucky enough to have (1) a lot of office
space (2) share it with *very* considerate office mates.
What areas of physics do you think there are not many textbooks?
I would say general relativity, cosmology & string theory.  Things are
looking good though - In the last 10 years, at least 5 very good up-to
date textbooks in each of these fields have been published.
Do you really have over 350 textbooks?
Yes! 14+24+22+17+9+26+35+32+28+36+26+24+40+27 > 350 . . . or you could just count them for yourself: 

          

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