Books. Lots of books.

See the full sized image by Katey Nicosia @ Flickr here. 

I used to read. A lot. While I’m working on my time management skills at the moment , I don’t seem to have as much time to read as I want to . I’ve made a promise to myself though that I won’t buy any new books until I’ve finished the ones I have on my shelf. I found this meme on Nicola’s blog, who in turn found it somewhere else.

Do you snack while you read? If so, favourite reading snack?
I try not to – I’ll just make a mess otherwise. Normally when I’m reading a book for fun I’m in my bed and I never eat or drink in bed for the fear of spilling something. When I’m reading and working on university things at a table or my desk I usually have a drink of some sort and Snack-a-Jack crisp things – they’re like mini rice cakes! Salt and vinegar flavour, of course.

Do you tend to mark your books as you read them, or does the idea of writing on your books horrify you?
I think I’ve only ever written on a book once – it was the Catcher in the Rye and I was going to write an essay on it. I read the book once, discovered that I didn’t really like it much and wouldn’t read it again so went to town with highlighters and pens. Except for that, I’ve never ever written in a book. I would never dream of writing in a textbook either – it would become unsellable.

How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog ears? Leaving the book open flat?
I have a terrible habit of lying them open flat and ruining the spine. I’m trying to stop doing this so I’m using a folded up post it note as a bookmark until I get something a little more permanent.

Fiction, Non-Fiction or both?
At the moment I’m preferring fiction books because I don’t want to feel like I’m learning anything else than what I have to for my modules. That said, I plan on buying a few non-fiction books when I do finish my backlog.

Are you a person who tends to read to the end of chapters, or are you able to put a book down at any point?
Both! If it’s a “complicated” book I have to read to the end of a chapter or I end up confusing myself, however if it’s a fairly simple and fluffy book I can just stop at the end of a paragraph and pick up where I left off later on.

If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop to look it up right away?
If I’m reading in the same room as my boyfriend then I’ll normally ask him what it means, otherwise I’ll just guess it from the context of the sentence and hope for the best.

What are you currently reading?
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown and The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. I also started reading Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally and The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice, but I’ll have to start again with them.

What is the last book you bought?
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown in Tesco for £7.

Are you the type of person who can only read one book at a time or can you read more than one at a time?
As you can tell from above, I can read more than one book at a time, but I probably shouldn’t since I confuse myself so much doing simple things.

Do you prefer series or stand alone books?
To be honest, I really have no preference at all – I read both, though I think I slightly prefer series if I’m being totally honest with myself. Series of books allow you to feel as though you know the character and drags you into the story a little bit more.

Is there a specific book or author that you find yourself recommending over and over?
Not really. I tell people to read Anne Rice and Stephen King a lot as they’re modern classics that a lot of people my age never read. They just don’t know what they’re missing out on.

How do you organize your books? (By genre, title, author’s last name, etc.?)
At the moment there’s no real organisation. The bookshelf I have is really small and I can really only just fit my books and magazines onto it. I have big books first in no particular order, then the smaller books (because books only seem to come in two sizes?!). There’s no order except for series being placed together and then in order. Like my Anne Rice books are all together in the right order since it’s the first four books of the Vampire Chronicles.

What is everyone else reading at the moment? Textbooks don’t count!