Book Lovers' Tag

It's been too long since I did one of these question sets! I couldn't figure out any way to fit with this week's Top Ten Tuesday topic on villains, so I thought this would be a good time to answer some reading-related questions. I found these questions at One Too Many Adjectives.

1. Do you have a specific place for reading?
No, I kind of read everywhere. BUT we just moved to a new apartment, and we've been talking about making one little area my reading area, with a comfy chair and a lamp and (hopefully) the prints mentioned at the end of this post that I'm asking for for Christmas.

2. Bookmarks or a random piece of paper?
Bookmarks! I have a collection of favorite bookmarks that I use for hard copy books. Plus bookmarks are sturdy — I feel like pieces of paper inevitably fall out or else flutter to the floor the second you open the book. Or else they contain valuable information that you lose because you forget you stuck the paper in a book.

3. Can you just stop anywhere or do you need to finish a chapter?
If finishing a chapter seems within reason in the amount of time I have, I will definitely read until the end of the chapter. More often than not, though, I'm reading in little snippets when I have time, and I don't have the luxury of picking a stopping point.

4. Do you eat or drink while reading?
So much of my reading is on the go (listening to an audiobook while I run, reading an ebook on my phone while standing in line, etc.), but when I actually have some free time in the evening after the little one's in bed, I will often make myself a cup of tea or bowl of ice cream before I sit down to read.

5. Music or TV while reading?
Never! I can't focus on the words if I'm hearing something else at the same time. The only time I turn on music while reading is when I'm trying to block out something else (like people around me having a conversation), which is when I put in my headphones and crank up an instrumental-only Pandora station.

6. One book at a time or several?
Definitely several. I'm usually in the middle of three books — an audiobook, an ebook, and a hard copy book.

7. Do you prefer to read at home or elsewhere?
I mean, in an ideal world, I would read at home in a perfectly quiet space, but that is a rarity in my real life. So I prefer to read wherever, whenever I can.

8. Read out loud or silently?
For as much as I talk to myself while I work, I almost never read out loud. (For my own books, that is; I read aloud to my toddler constantly from his collection of five favorite books.) The only time I try reading aloud is when I'm majorly struggling through a dense read and my mind keeps wandering because I don't understand what I'm reading.

9. Do you read ahead or skip the pages?
I try not to — for print books, my eyes will sometimes skim ahead involuntarily if I'm trying to figure out if something's going in the direction I think it's going. But I only ever skip pages if something is really gory/gruesome.

10. Breaking the spine or keeping like new?
Hard to say, because I rarely read new books. A large portion of what I read is digital (audiobook/ebook) to begin with, and then most hard copy books I read are from the library. If I own a book, it's probably a used one from PaperBackSwap. But if it's brand new, the spine will probably stay intact since I use bookmarks and don't lay it open face down.

11. Do you write in your books?
No, not since freshman year of college. Once I realized they lost their buyback value, I immediately broke that habit and haven't picked it up again. PaperBackSwap also requires clean pages, and of course most of my hard copy books are from the library anyway. (PSA: Don't write in library books!) I love Kindle books because I can highlight things I like and add notes, mostly where I feel obligated to call out something inaccurate or inconsistent. (Editing habits die hard.)

Share your answers in comments, or post a link to the answers on your own blog!