Let's Hear it for Our Quirks!

The other night I found myself engrossed in a story until 2 o'clock in the morning. I had no idea what time it was until I put my Kindle down and looked at the clock. I'd been waiting for a natural stopping point in the story and just couldn't bring myself to leave this fictional world I was immersed in any sooner than I did.

I am not the type of reader who stays up all night to read. I stayed up late ONCE for a very anticipated release, waiting for it to download to my Kindle, and managed to read for only an hour before I fell asleep.

Source

So, yeah, this story that kept me up until almost 2 AM the other night was a good story. But it got me thinking. As I've talked books with my fellow Wenches and other friends, I've discovered that we all approach reading in slightly different ways. Sure, some things are universal. But I bet there are "types" of readers as well. And that we probably have reading habits that are unique to each of us, that defy categorization.

So follow me through the jump where I talk about my weird little reading habits, and you'll get the chance to share yours.



So, yes, as I was saying, while I can waste spend an entire weekend reading (once, on a five-day vacation, I did absolutely nothing but read), I have never been one to read through the night, even though I know many dedicated readers who do. For better or worse, my all-nighters typically involve people of the flesh-and-blood variety, rather than the fictional variety.

But, aside from no all-nighters, what other reading idiosyncrasies do I have? Sometimes I'll go months without reading. *Gasp* I know. I go through phases. Sometimes it's movies. Then I'll move on to tv shows. Sometimes I'll pick up a hobby that I never follow through on. Then back to reading.

But no matter what, once I read something "serious," I need to cleanse the palate with something lighter. Call it a book hangover, but I can't jump from one intense book right into another. Standalone books work great for this purpose when I finish a series, too.

Let's talk locations. I have a tv room. IDK. One person, one house, too many rooms I guess. (The dogs have their own room, too.) I cannot read in the tv room. Absolutely impossible. I can't read leisure books at work, and I can't read work books at home. Otherwise, I can read anything, anywhere. When I was a kid, I read the cereal box while having breakfast because otherwise I was bored. You know, just sitting there eating a bowl of cereal wasn't entertaining enough.

When I start a book, I have to start from the cover. I look at every single page. The title page. Those blank pages in the beginning (that is called a "flyleaf" page, btw). The copyright page. One of my favorite things to look at are the dates and cities of the previous editions of the book. I feel like it tells a little story about the book's life. When I'm done reading, I flip through all the pages until I get to the back cover. Just so I don't miss anything. I scrutinize the author's bio, trying to read between the lines. One of my favorite author bios is Sandra Cisneros's in Woman Hollering Creek.

The daughter of a Mexican father and a Mexican-American mother, and a sister to six brothers, she is nobody's mother and nobody's wife.

I was able to leave behind what was probably one of my more embarrassing habits when I gave up my "dead-tree books" for my Kindle. I used to fiddle and play with the edges of the book pages, running them under my fingernail. I bet it drove the people around me batty, and probably left more than a few confused library patrons when they checked out books with little half-moon marks along the pages of their books!

I'm sure if I thought about it some more, I could come up with dozens of odd little habits and rituals I have when it comes to reading. But what I really want to know are your reading idiosyncrasies. Come on, then. Don't be shy! Share them in the comments below.