The Reading Habits Book Tag
Well hey, hi, hello there reader.
The Reading Habits Tag
1. Do you have a certain place at home for reading?
Usually I am tucked away on my corner of the couch in the living room under a blanket, but I can and do read everywhere. I have been known to read while cooking, read while getting ready for bed, read while in bed, and read in the car (when I'm not driving). When I was younger I would take every opportunity to read so anywhere I had a book on me became my place. Now that I'm more settled, I prefer the couch. It's soft and warm and has a nice shelf next to it for the placement of tea. Tea is essential to my reading.
2. Bookmark or random piece of paper?
I have plenty of bookmarks, reader. I even keep them all in one handy place. It's a little crochet cactus my mom made for me. And that is usually where the bookmarks sit as I use everything from receipts to my phone as a bookmark. When I'm starting or finishing a hardback, I'll use the dust jacket as a place holder too. I live in a hell of my own creation, reader.
3. Can you just stop reading or do you have to stop after a chapter/ a certain amount of pages?
Preferably after a chapter, but I can and do just leave the book in the middle of a sentence if I have to run and do something. Part of this comes from reading on the bus on the way to school where I would have to drop everything when we got there. Another part comes from reading Discworld books, which often don't have chapters. For those books I usually stop at a paragraph break if I have the luxury of time. Otherwise I just stop when I am forced to.
4. Do you eat or drink while reading?
I usually don't eat while reading, but I do drink tea. I like the ritual of making tea, it settles me down and puts me in a cozy reading space. There is nothing better than a hot mug of tea, a book, and a nice fluffy blanket. I also don't like getting food on my books, which always seems to happen when I try to eat and read.
5. Multitasking: Music or Tv while reading?
I can and do read while other people are watching Tv, but I prefer it quiet. Reading is one of those activities that takes up my whole focus and having stuff going on in the background is distracting. When I have to do academic reading, though, I usually put music on. I typically choose songs that are either instrumental or in a language I don't speak well. Words are very distracting.
6. One book at a time or several at once?
Several. I have ADHD so it's easier for me to read more than one book at once. That way when I want a change I can switch between books. Typically I like to read a nonfiction and a fiction book concurrently, but lately I've been focusing on fiction for whatever reason. Possibly I need a palette cleanse after all the textbooks I read for school.
7. Reading at home or everywhere?
Anywhere I can bring a book, I will read. I'm a homebody so most of the time I'm reading at home, but if I need to venture out into the world I usually take a book. Before I knew I had anxiety, I would always leave the house with a book or two for security. Having them made me feel less anxious. When I was younger, I would read wherever I could. In grade school we were allowed to go to the library before class started so I would usually go there to read in the mornings. I also read during class, something that was noted on all my report cards.
8. Reading out loud or silently in your head?
It honestly depends. I started reading out loud to myself when I was a kid so I could practice. I always felt bad for the kids who got called on to read aloud because they stumbled over their words so much. I was terrified that would happen to me, so I used to go into my parents' room on the weekends and just read the first Harry Potter book over and over aloud so I would get better at it. In college, I would read my text books to myself in order to practice accents and so I could absorb the material. Now I only read aloud if there is a particularly funny piece of dialog or narration.
9. Do you read ahead or even skip pages?
I don't. I will stop reading periodically to page ahead to the next chapter to see how many pages away I am, but I don't skip ahead. I've only ever skipped chapters in one book which alternated between two time periods in the narrator's life and that was way back in Junior High. I either power through sections I don't like or I stop reading the book entierly.
10. Breaking the spine or keeping it new?
I try to treat the spins of my books with care, but since I have mostly paperbacks the do tend to deteriorate over time. Usually the books I read the most are the ones with the most spine damage. My copy of Good Omens, for example, is a mess. It looks like Bane got ahold of it and snapped it over his knee. This is the replacement copy too, since the first copy I had basically disintegrated. This is apparently not uncommon for copies of Good Omens, reader. There's a part of the forward that talks about how many busted copies Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett saw and signed over the years.
11. Do you write in your books?
Usually I write in the books I'm reading academically. I will mark passages and annotate them to make writing papers with them easier. I do a lot of highlighting and commenting in pdfs as well. My fiction books I normally don't, either because margin space is too small or because I don't have a pen on hand. Digital fiction books I mark all the time. My ebook copy of Awoken is so heavily annotated I basically wrote another book in its digital margins. I have a fondness for marginalia (the stuff written in the margins) in books. I love finding second hand copies people have written in. I also love finding them in really old books. It was pretty common practice to write in your copies back in ye olden days since paper was scarce. My favorite fun fact is that instead of arrows like we commonly use, they would draw a hand pointing to the note, complete with fun sleeve and everything. (These are called manicules and I love them so much.) It's delightful finding the thoughts of people who read a book before you (sometimes centuries before you).
A manicule in a 12th c. copy of Laws of England
That wraps up this particular book tag. I hope you enjoyed yourself, reader. I always enjoy a good book tag. I tag anyone who wants to do this tag as well. I certainly wasn't tagged for this.
Until next time dear reader 🎃
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