ABOUT

1.) I write in my books. Sometimes I dog-ear pages. My feeling is that if the book is mine, I can do what I want with it. I would never deface a book belonging to another person or a library. But yeah, if it’s my book, it’s probably underlined and annotated, and more likely than not, it’s resided in the bottom of my bag at some point or another, so it’s probably been bent or manhandled for a bit there too.

2.) Like many people, I probably can’t name a single book that I would call my “favorite,” but I have a few favorites per different genres, so here they are:

Literary Fiction: A Little Life by Hanya Yanigahara (what can I say, I’m a sucker for a good book about friendship and an angsty book…and this book had both)

YA: Touching Darkness by Scott Westerfeld (this is the second book in the Midnighters series, and probably the book I’ve read the most number of times - I love this series, and this is my favorite part of the series)

Sci-fi/Fantasy: Free Fall by Laura Anne Gilman (this is probably my least read genre or couple of genres, but this is one of the few series I really love, and this is my favorite in the series)

Classic: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (I struggled with this book the first time I read it in high school and quite frankly didn’t like it - in part because the class I read it for was not equipped to discuss issues of race and class in a meaningful way, and this book implicates both - but when I read it in college for two different classes with one of my favorite professors, my perspective on it shifted completely, and now I find myself thinking about it all the time. When I moved the last time, I think I left it at my parent’s house, but when I find it I intend to read it again)

Mystery: Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny (Louise Penny is one of my favorite mystery authors of all time - I will probably have a whole post about that in the future, but right now I’ll just say that this is my favorite in the Gamache series, and that’s saying something because I’m absolutely obsessed with the series as a whole)

3.) My favorite book format is paperback, but I’m one of those people who doesn’t feel any pretension in that choice. I like paperbacks because I’m not a very good auditory learner (so I’ll listen to audiobooks occasionally, but it’s not my preferred method of reading), I get headaches from staring at screens too long (so ebooks also aren’t my preferred method of reading), and paperbacks just seem more portable than hardbacks and I always like to have a book with me when I leave the house. But there are some exceptions:

Memoirs - I love a memoir in audiobook format, especially when it’s read by the author. That’s when I feel like the author is just telling the the story of their life, and I really enjoy that feeling.

Library books - Ebook library books are my favorite (especially in recent times when going to the library in person was for a while impossible and, even after it re-opened, didn’t feel all that safe) because I can literally check them out at any time and don’t have to worry about getting back to the library before the due date.

New books by my favorite authors - I often don’t feel the need to read books as soon as they are released, but if the book is by a favorite author, I will splurge on the hardback, just so I can read it as soon as possible. 

4.) I don’t always read the book first before watching a movie/TV adaptation. A lot of the time I will, especially if I find the storyline intriguing. But plenty of tv shows and movies that I have watched in recent years have been based on books and I haven’t always read the book first. I don’t feel like that impacts my reading experience at all, if I later choose to read the book.

5.) I don’t believe in guilty pleasure books. I’ve always approached reading as a method of finding joy or of learning something. I don’t think there’s anything guilt inducing about either of those pursuits, and labeling either as a “guilty pleasure” just never sat well with me. I will boldly proclaim that I love a good cowboy romance novel just as readily as I will proclaim I love certain classics (hello Pride and Prejudice and The House of Mirth).