My Reading Habits: Book Buying, Bookmarks, Annotating, and More

I’m running out of post ideas.

I’ve said this several times already but I just have to reiterate! But I’ve seen a lot of people discuss some of their bookish habits in the past few months. I thought, why not join in and make a whole post about my own reading habits!! Because I take my inspiration solely from other people now.

This is going to be a fairly short post (or at least… shorter than the usual monster posts I write), but I had fun writing it! I can’t remember the last time I’ve written a casual post like this?? Also for no reason other than how I crave structure, I’ve organized these into good, neutral, and bad!

Click for BLM resources.

• petitions
• numbers/emails
• videos to stream (ad revenue will be donated)
• George Floyd gofundme
• Gianna Floyd (his daughter) gofundme
• Breonna Taylor gofundme
• Ahmaud Arbery gofundme
• Elijah McClain gofundme
• bail funds, research local ones near you too
• organizations
• small Black businesses that were destroyed
• Black-owned businesses
• indie Black-owned bookstores
• tips on overall protest safety
• google doc masterlist of BLM resources

THE GOOD

some diverse books, baby!

• I read diversely in terms of representation! I of course can always, always be doing better, as can everyone, and I’m trying to be more aware of whose books I’m picking up, whose stories they’re telling, and whose voice is telling them. But I think I’m doing a pretty decent job already, if I say so myself! There’s always room for improvement though. <33
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• I rarely buy books! This simultaneously comes from a place of privilege and also not, because while I’m a high school student with no source of income to be able to buy books at all, I do receive a decent amount of books each year from publishers, family, and my library.
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• I’m great at not requesting ARCs. Seeing people panic about how they’ve requested too many ARCs is never relatable to me! While I do request ARCs, I request the ones I’m actually interested in, so I don’t end up with a bunch that I don’t want to read. We’re going to ignore how I’ve been requesting more lately.
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• I can read in any format!! I’m not sure if this is really a habit, but I’m including it anyways. I read a lot more audiobooks this year and so I can finally say I’m comfortable with any format, which is fantastic because I love the different experiences/benefits that come with each of them!

THE NEUTRAL

• I have to stop at chapter breaks; I can’t simply stop reading at a random place unless I’ve only been reading for a few minutes/am not into the book at all. I can inadvertently force myself to read more by doing this (especially with “just one more chapter”), but also it’s a pain when I want to stop reading and the chapters are like 50 pages long!!
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• I don’t highlight or annotate (unless I’m reading an ebook). I’m simultaneously fascinated with and horrified at the idea of writing anything in my books. I feel like it would be a fun experience for rereads? But then I just can’t picture myself actually doing anything to a book other than reading it and like… touching it?
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• I can’t read multiple books at once. This is neutral to me since I don’t think there are many pros vs cons with reading one book vs reading multiple books? My brain simply just cannot focus on more than one book at a time, and me reading “multiple” books literally means putting that book down to start another one and then sadly forgetting about the original book.

OTHER, SMALLER NEUTRAL HABITS

• I’m a mood reader. It’s wonderful to just pick up whatever I feel like reading at the moment, but on the rare occasion I try to make a TBR, I just set myself up for utter FAILURE.
• I read in silence! Sometimes I can listen to music (or it can weirdly help me get into a book), but I’ll have to turn it off eventually.
• I read mostly on my bed and occasionally on my couch, which are pretty standard places to read?
• I organize my bookshelf by color! (Don’t know if this is really a habit, but I’m including it anyways.) It makes me very happy to look at, and I also generally remember colors and visual things more easily, but I hate splitting up series.
• I honestly don’t remember the last time I read and I wasn’t lying on my back… what’s sitting I don’t know her. Three seconds after I wrote this I realized I read a little bit when I was eating dinner, and I am ignoring that that happened!!

THE BAD

all YA (that I love!!)

• I don’t read diversely in terms of genre. I’m mainly a YA fantasy/contemporary reader, and this is something I really want to change soon—I want to read more adult fiction, classics, and non-fiction!! (Would anyone be interested in reading a post of some of the specific books I want to read?) Also this is bad for me personally: I love YA, and sticking to one genre is definitely not bad, but I just want to expand my horizons!
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• I never use bookmarks. I’m one of the chaotic people who does nothing to mark my page when I need to put a book down! I don’t even remember a page number, I just remember the general scene and then flip through the book to find it. (Yes it has gotten me spoiled a few times… we all have our flaws.)
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• I read mainly at night! I’ve been reading more during the day lately, since I have free time pretty much constantly now that I’m in quarantine, but besides that, I’m a night reader. This is bad specifically because I have a tendency to stay up in general anyways, but it’s even worse when I start reading a book at like… midnight. And then refuse to stop reading.
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• I don’t take notes while reading. I’m categorizing this as a bad thing because I would be so POWERFUL if I took notes while I read!! I’ve been jotting down a few bullet points after finishing books recently, but I just really want to get into the habit of writing notes during, because I have a terrible memory and they help me so much!

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what are some of your reading habits? do we share some or have completely different experiences?? morning, afternoon, or night? bookmarks, dogears, or nothing?