My Book Buying Experiences and Habits

Common jokes in the book community often center on book buying.

They’re all in good fun, of course, but obviously, they aren’t relatable to everyone! Many people, including myself, don’t buy a bunch of books before finishing unread ones, or have 20+ monthly book hauls. While I’m not going to dive into the consumerism that is definitely rampant in the book community, since that’s an issue that goes beyond books, I wanted to talk about my own personal experiences with book buying!

(Of course, the fact that I am able to read a lot of books without buying them is a privilege!!! I have the choice and the ability to do this, and many people do not—but because I do have a choice, it makes me wonder about why others in the community don’t make that choice too.)

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My Reading Experience, Disconnecting from Social Media

As you’ve probably noticed, I’ve been less active online.

Not only in the blogging world, but also on social media. I always like to think of my blog as a much more joyful space than social media, which is why I try to prioritize it over social media platforms, but it’s no secret that places like book Twitter and bookstagram can suck me in.

Over the past year, though, I’ve been considerably less active on those platforms—and it’s made me so much happier! And while I have several thoughts on how tiring social media can be and other negative aspects of it, I wanted to focus specifically on how my reading has changed as a result of being less online, because I’ve noticed a lot of effects that I wholeheartedly welcome.

And of course, this discussion isn’t meant to demean these social media platforms or anyone on them! I’m still on social media, just much less now, and this is based solely on my personal experiences.

How My Reading & Mindset About Reading Have Evolved This Year

“Read more diversely.”

That was one of my reading goals for 2021—not in terms of representation (though always that too), but in terms of genre, age group, and type. And honestly, it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made for my reading.

Throughout the year, I’ve observed how many more of x books I’m reading, how much more I’m enjoying x genre over one I usually read. I’ve observed my feelings about my reading and books in general, and how they’ve shifted because of me expanding my reading horizons. And I wanted to write a post about it all, because reading more widely has changed my reading for the better, truly!!

I’ve been really excited to post this, and it’s actually been sitting in my drafts for a third of a year. But I guess it was meant to be that I’m posting it toward the end of 2021, so that I can get a more complete view of the whole year’s reading! This is a post that is very nerdy, self-indulgent, and even cheesy at times, but I hope that you enjoy reading it despite that :]

My Book Review Writing Process + A Few Tips!

Exposing myself as a Gross Book Nerd on this blog: for the nth time!

This post has been sitting in my drafts for almost a year, but I’ve held off on posting it because I was still figuring out the best way for me to write reviews, and I knew that I wanted more practice before determining what was my “definitive” process. And I can definitely say now that I’m very comfortable with the process I’ve developed for myself!

I don’t consider myself a great reviewer—I’d say I can get my thoughts across coherently, so I meet the bare minimum—so this isn’t like “my process is the best and I’m an excellent reviewer because of it.” But I still wanted to share how I write my reviews anyway because I always found these posts from others helpful in the past!!

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!

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