Thabo owns exactly 280 books, and each book is either paperback fiction, paperback nonfiction, or hardcover nonfiction. If he owns 20 more paperback nonfiction books than hardcover nonfiction books, and twice as many paperback fiction books as paperback nonfiction books, how many hardcover books nonfiction books does Thabo own? Choose the correct choice from the following answers: A) 10 B) 20 C) 30 D) 40 E) 55

Rationale: "i think we can use double - matrix method and solve using only one variable . our goal is to find the number of hardcover nonfiction books . let that number be x . we are given that all 140 books are either paperback fiction , paperback nonfiction , or hardcover nonfiction . this implies that number of hardcover fiction books is 0 . double - matrix : p = paperback ; h = hardcover ; f = fiction ; nf = nonfiction p h total f 2 x + 40 0 nf x + 20 x total 3 x + 60 x 280 3 x + 60 + x = 280 x = 55 answer ( e . )"
Answer: E