Top Five Tuesday: Bookish Habits

For this week’s Top Five Tuesday, Bionic Book Worm has asked us about our Bookish Habits!  So here are mine, the good, the bad, and the ugly!

Reading Before Bed
This is something I started doing as a child and has continued well into my adult years.  Even in the times when I fell off of being a voracious reader, it was nice to know that I’d always have that 20-30 minute window before bed to read.   Now, when I make more of an effort to read at lunch or after work, I still like knowing that even if the day gets away from me, I still have a dedicated reading time, to make a little more progress on my book.

Refusing to Admit Books Have Fallen Off My TBR
This is a bad habit I have, particularly when it comes to books I’ve picked up at cons.  If I were honest with myself, I have between 6 to 10 books on my shelves right that now that will forever live at the bottom of my TBR pile and never find their way to the top of my reading stack.  And yet I find it hard to unhaul the books for two reasons.  1) They’ve lived so long on my shelf it feels like upsetting a cosmic balance to get rid of them.  2) I feel a weird sense of obligation to read the ones I got from cons.  I was handed a free copy, one someone else didn’t get, so the least I can do is read it, right?  But the reality is, I kind of reflexively grab everything I see at a con, and figure I’ll sort them out later.  Until I never do, and the books are sitting unread, four years later.  But let’s be real, given the piles of books on my floor, it would probably be healthy for me to make some more space on my shelves.

Taking a Book With Me Wherever I Go
I have been blessed all my life with the ability to read in moving vehicles, so at a bare minimum I always had a book with me when my parents drove me anywhere.  But it was on a family trip to Disney World I discovered the magic of reading in lines.  I must have read 4 books simply from line reading on that trip alone.  Since then, I’ve made it a habit to throw a book in my purse or on my phone, because it is AMAZING how much reading you can get done while waiting for things.  Waiting for take-out food, waiting for a movie to start, waiting for your turn at the post office.  8 minutes here, 7 minutes there really starts to add up!

Starting Series and Not Finishing Them
I’m trying to be better about this one, as evidenced by my Great Series Read Project.  But I have a long standing tradition of reading book one, or even making it to book two, and then never finishing the trilogy or series.  Some of this attribute to forgetting the details of book one, which makes me put off the sequel, but honestly some of it is just the overload of series I have to start.  I already read a STORMLIGHT ARCHIVES book, but I’ve never read a FIRST LAW book, so shouldn’t I read that instead?  I can always come back to STORMLIGHT, right?  Except when I let that logic rule, I end up with two dozen started series and no finished ones.

Making Lists
This is a decidedly neutral habit.  Lists remind me of things that have gotten lost in the weeds on my TBR, Kindle books I’ve bought, series I’ve started and need to continue.  My monthly TBR lists have helped me stay focused and make sure I read my ARCs in a timely fashion and choose the books I’m going to prioritize for the next four weeks.  But occasionally they can make reading feel a bit constricted.  If I read something that ISN’T on a list, have I been productive?  The logical answer is that all reading counts, rereads are healthy, and I should just read whatever I damn well please.  But I have to admit, there’s still a twitch when I read something that somehow isn’t on a list somewhere.

And those are my Bookish Habits.  What are yours?