I have read the book... I think

[KG Christopher]

This is quite insightful. One of my all time favourites has different versions depending on where it was distributed. Are there any other similar books that have variations, and if so, how can you be sure you are reading the same book as your friend.


Cloud Atlas 'astonishingly different' in US and UK editions, study finds

 

[David Newrick]

I would assume, fairly safely, that any novel that you read that has been translated from another language will have different versions - even in the same language, because they are by different translators. Add to that the different idioms, tropes and sentence structures of different languages and you could see massive differences in sense and meaning.

Despite a supposedly 'common language' there are no doubt increasingly massive differences between English and American-English. I think it was Alistair Cooke who said 'Never have two countries been so separated by the same language'.

 

[Boopadoo]

A Clockwork Orange had vastly different UK and US versions at first - the original final chapter was deemed "too bland" a conclusion for American tastes at the time, so they omitted it. I first read it 35 years ago and didn't even know chapter 21 existed until I bought an e-book version for my Nook a couple of years ago, which included both the chapter and an essay from Anthony Burgess about it.

 

[KG Christopher]

Two good points raised, one on local adaptations of the language (think of 'fanny' in English english and American english), and the other seems to be more dramatic, changing whole sections, or adding a new chapter?.

 

[Robinne Weiss]

There have been an number of recent YA books that have had a YA and an adult version released. Can't remember which ones though...

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Book covers are even more prone to change, not to mention the actual title of the book. The best-known example is JK Rowling's first Harry Potter novel, which was Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in the U.K., but Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the U.S.A.

U.S. or U.K.: Why Book Covers are Not the Same

It's hard to imagine any one book existing in a single version, by which I mean exactly the same text and book cover design. This is mainly down to the way the publishing industry works, for all of those employees need to do something, so they'll finesse a book that was first published abroad to fit their market, even if the original was passable.

Think of all of the different versions of the Bible there have been over the centuries. In more modern times, and the second most printed book in history, Chairman Mao's Little Red Book may have the strongest image for a book marketed worldwide. I recall counter-culture types having copies of it in the 1960s. Everybody had heard of it, even though few had read it. Even so, it still came in many versions.