Monday, May 27, 2013

My reading rules

As much as a cringe to admit it, I am a librarian who likes to read.  There.   I'm a living cliche.  Oh the embarrassment!

Side note: this is not an admission that will get you very far in an interview for a librarian job.  Just so you know. Customer services skills are much more relevant.

Anyway!

Reading rules, do you have them? This is a kind of meme coming from Bookriot, via Bookshelves of Doom and Flexnib.

The writer at Bookriot says,

"...I thought about it as just a list of my (many!) seemingly arbitrary rules for reading. Once I got started, though, I discovered that those rules actually tell you so much about me that they double as personality traits..."

So, in the interests of delving into my personality, here are my reading rules.  What are yours?

1.  One book at a time.  I do occasionally break this rule, especially if I pick up one I must read AT ONCE and I'm in the middle of another.  Or, I'll sometimes read a fiction and a non-fiction at the same time.

2.  Must read before turning off the light. It's a conditioned reflex for me.  Reading is relaxation and so reading before going to sleep is signalling to my brain to turn off. 

3.  I rarely re-read things.  Only a few books will be revisited. 

4.  A good book is one where I emerge from it with a book hangover.

5.  Don't mark the pages.  I'm not sure where this one comes from since I have no issue with writing all over printed out journal articles and other documents.  But, books?  No.  On the other hand I do highlight non-fiction if I'm reading it as an ebook.

6.  I rarely use bookmarks, preferring to turn the book face down at the page I'm reading.  Bookmarks are used for ebooks though.

7. I usually prefer the book to the movie.  I can appreciate a movie as a separate interpretation but most of the time the book resonates more.

8.  I will read the "in" book if it appeals.  But some genre's don't appeal.  Fifty shades?  Nope. Life of Pi? Okay.

9.  There are some books I won't read because I find their content too much to deal with.  For example, dystopian books rarely appear on my reading lists.  Harrowing books about children don't work for me right now. E.g. Sarah's Key is not something I can face reading right now.  Unless there is some kind of Happy End, I can't deal with that sort of story.

10.  I like Happy End.  Please give it to me.