I picked up a hard cover edition of The Gunslinger (revised) a few months ago to read while I was on vacation. I left the dust jacket at home, and I started the book on the plane. By the time I reached my destination, my hands were completely covered in sticky black dye from the cover. I didn't think I would ever get them clean. I didn't get the book wet, and I don't think I've ever had that problem before. I bought the book again in paperback to finish, and I have read the books through Wizard In Glass in paperback as well.

This week, I ordered Wolves Of The Calla and Song Of Susannah (hard cover of course), and I'm wondering if I'm going to have the same problem. I normally take off the dust jacket while I'm reading a book. I'm more likely to mess up the jacket than the book. Should I buy a pair of gloves to finish the series?

Actually, yes you probably will. I noticed several times while reading Calla that it looked like I'd been fingerprinted. I think that's the only book that's ever caused it for me.

This has happened to me as well. There are book cloths you can purchase for relatively cheap to correct this.

Never happened to me.

Of course with Susannah in my hands now, I'm noticing soem black markings. Curses.

Same happened to me with Wolves.

I think the purpose of the dust jacket itself is to protect the cloth binding from fingerprint oil and other damage. So you should probably leave it on. What you should do, if you're any kind of collector, is protect the dust jacket in something like BroDart and, again, keep the jacket on the book.

I suggest buying the hardcover, protecting it in BroDart as Jason suggested, then putting in on the shelf with other BroDarted books. Then, in a year, buy the paperback version to read it.