There’s nothing like that buzz of going into a bookshop (new or second-hand) and spotting something you haven’t already got in your collection. However, as they say in court, caveat emptor, or buyer beware! For many years now there has been a trend by publishers to repackage origami books and to recycle their contents. Paul Jackson has suffered more than most – way back in the 90s I saw a book by him which had a photo from my first book of planes (by the same publisher) on the cover, although the model wasn’t inside. I asked him about it and his response was “what book?” It was a salutory lesson to learn that a) publisher do this sort of thing and b) authors rarely even know about it, much less have a say in it.

I’ve since seen this happen over and over again – the late Rick Beech’s excellent “Complete Guide” seems to be available in about 5 different editions, with all or a selection of the same models within. I’ve even suffered myself, thankfully to a lesser extent. The problem is that the authors reputation invariably takes a hit when you buy an apparently new book, only to find you already have it. Remember though, there’s a good chance that not only did the author have no knowledge of it, but almost certainly didn’t even get paid for the repackaged job.