My bookish bad habits

Every reader has those bookish bad habits that they just can’t help. Some don’t even realize they have them.

It took me a while to think of mine, but after a huge amount of time, I finally figured them out.

So here are my Top 10 bookish bad habits…

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Not continuing series

For some reason, when I buy my next batch of books, instead of continuing a series I’ve already started by buying the next books…I buy the first book in a different series. I have no idea why. I own so many first books of different series’ , it’s a little bit ridiculous. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the first books – in fact I have plenty of book series I keep meaning to buy because of how much I liked the first book – but I just NEVER seem to get round to it. Maybe I just like reading too many different stories?

I’m not joking either when I say there’s a lot of started series’. Some examples…

The Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness. I own The Knife of Never Letting Go, but haven’t bought the other two yet.

Anna and the French Kiss series by Stephanie Perkins. Again, I own the first – and it became a favourite of mine – but do I own the other two? Nope.

The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer. I actually own the first two of this series…still need to buy Cress and Winter (when it’s released).

I could go on.

 

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Chapters

When reading a book, I pretty much always have to get to the end of a chapter before I pause reading.

If something stops me from doing that  – say if I was reading during a journey and got to where I needed to be – something about pausing in the middle of a page bothers me. I’d be itching to get back to my book just to be able to get to the end of the chapter. If I couldn’t get to the end of the chapter before stopping for a while, when I get back into reading it, I feel off balance and have to reread a bit before.

I don’t know – is it weird? Probably.

 

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E Readers

Now, since everyone knows I like reading so much, I’ve been asked this question many times:

“Why don’t you just get an E-reader?”

Here’s why: I just don’t like them.

One of the main things I like about reading is the actual books. I have a pretty big collection of them – over 200. I love seeing them on my shelves, but if they were all on an E-reader, all I’d see is a picture of the cover and a number of the amount I own. No no. I’d much rather have my paperbacks.

But the bad habit is that whenever someone suggests an E-reader to me, I sort of act a tiny bit disgusted with the idea. I have nothing against other people using them, but the idea of myself using one makes me cringe inwardly. And with them being suggested to me so often and me constantly having to say “No I’m alright with my books thanks” – they sort of have a bad press in my mind.

 

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No Storage

I have long since ran out of space in my room for books. Does that stop me buying more?

Maybe? more like Nope. Not at all.

My room has stacks and stacks of books everywhere. One wrong move and the next minute – they fall like dominoes.

But I just can’t stop buying books. Most of my life is spent reading books so what would happen if I ran out of books to read? It’d be a disaster! Plus the length of my TBR is already huge, so if I stop buying them it’ll go a bit out of control (not that it isn’t already).

So whenever I get a new book, there I go rearranging a whole bunch of other books just to get the new one to fit somewhere. The problem is not that i have too many books.  You can never have too many books. The problem is that i don’t have enough shelves for them all.

 

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Judge a book by it’s cover

Here comes the common phrase

“Don’t judge a book by it’s cover.”

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what I do.

If I’m stood in a bookshop, looking through all the shelves at the hundreds of books laid before me, I automatically start judging the books by their covers. There’s no way that I have enough time to read the synopsis of every single book in front of me. So I have to do some judging.

However, it becomes a bad habit when i refuse to pick up any book with something I don’t like on the cover – such as a person posing. Certain things on covers just put me off picking it up, instead of giving it a chance. I know I shouldn’t do it.

I’ve even had experience of a case where I shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover. The book Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins caught my eye because of the amount of people talking about it, but the title and cover made me cringe. I’m not one for cheesy love stories. But then the cover change came. I gave it a chance. It is now one of my favourite books!

 

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Force myself to finish books

I have only ever not finished one book in my life. I have this habit where if I start a book, I simply have to finish it. Even if i’m not enjoying it. I have this little voice in my head that has an ongoing argument while reading a book I don’t like, that goes something along the lines of this:

“You’re not enjoying this. Just put it down and read a different book.”

“But I’m halfway through it now. Maybe just a bit longer?”

“It’s already taken you a week. Put the book down.”

“No. I might like the ending.”

“Put it down”

“Nope.”

And so it continues.

 

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Rarely Rereading

I always plan on rereading my favourite books. Every year I plan on rereading the Harry Potter series, but it never seems to happen.

With the size of my TBR list, I think the idea of rereading books is a bit daunting. I mean, why read a book you’ve already read before when you can cut down your TBR list instead? Well – because you love that book!

i say this to myself over and over again, but I still never get round to rereading my favourites.

The last time I did was a rare case, just before Queen Of Shadows by Sarah J Maas was released, I reread the book before it Heir Of Fire. Other than that, I’ve not reread a book in… years maybe?

 

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Skim Reading

This is one I’ve only started noticing recently. If I’m not enjoying a certain bit of a book, I start skim reading. I didn’t think it was so bad at first, because it allowed me to read it quicker, but then I noticed that I tend to skip entire paragraphs of the story. I don’t do this often, but when I do I’m probably missing some of the story, whether it’s an event that happens, someone’s name, or a description of the setting.

Now that I’ve noticed it I can pick up on when I do it and see why I skipped or skim read that certain part, and what I don’t like about it to say in my review. I still need to make an effort to stop though.

 

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Bookmarks

For somebody who tends to use the same few bookmarks all the time, I have an unnecessary amount of bookmarks.

I just seem to collect them from everywhere.

Whenever I visit a new place, if there’s a gift shop I tend to look for a new bookmark. If there’s a free bookmark lying around in a library or bookshop, I pick one up even if I don’t like the design. I use random objects as bookmarks – Starbucks cardboard cup holders, wooden drink stirrers, paint shade samplers. I make bookmarks even though I know I already have about 30 others.

There’s just so many, tucked away in this jar I have.

And I know I won’t stop collecting them. Maybe they’ll all come in handy one day?

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Libraries

This bad habit is refusing to go to libraries. Like the E-readers, people ask me

“Why don’t you borrow books from a library instead of buying them all?”

This is because I want to own my books. Every single time I borrow a book from somebody, I tend to want the story to myself. But you can’t keep library books.

Also, the condition of the library books would bug me, since the spines would be cracked, and more often than not there’d be bent or smudged pages.

The fact that there’s a time limit on how long you can keep the book would pressurize me.

I just refuse to go to libraries. Let me build my own.

 

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So those are my top 10 bookish bad habits!

Let me know if you have any in common, or tell me what one of you bad habits are!