28 August 2012

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Confessions

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Top Ten Bookish Confessions:
Everyone has at least one bookish confession (and in my case I have six). Join us in spilling our deepest held secrets around one of our most beloved pastimes. Everyone has a bookish confession. What's yours? If you have one feel free to share it, if not feel free to commiserate with ours -Julia


I dunno if this will go to ten, but usually once I've started to plumb my psyche for dark secrets, it's difficult to stop.

1.  I have broken up with (or refused to date) people because they don't read books. I don't mean "books I like;" I mean that they are self-described "non-readers," a word that sounds like Swahili or some other 100% incomprehensible-to-me language when it comes out of someone's mouth.

Arghlbarghl? 

Now, in my defense, the guy I refused to date because he doesn't read also loves camping, hiking, snow sports, guns, and martial arts; which is basically a list of Tika-Repellent. Too bad - he was hot, but I like to have something to talk about between shenanigans.

2. I used to dog-ear the pages of library books. I KNOW.

3.  I have, on occasion, professed to have read a book that I either have not actually read (but usually own), have only read part of, intend to read, or have seen the movie of.

3a. I have also on occasion mocked people for not having read books I haven't read myself for the reasons previously stated.

4.  This New Year's week I marked all the books on my shelf that I haven't yet read; there were over 100 of them. Then I packed to move and am secretly hoping all the markers fall off in the boxes. Or magically disappear.

5. I read more blogs about books than I do actual books. This is partly due to Google reader on the sly at work and partly because I can't look away from my computer screen for more than 5 minutes. It's an addiction except there are no meetings. Just more blogs.

6. While I like lit-nerd discussion about character development and plot and author intention as much as the next girl, I enjoy the subset of book bloggers who are into snark and gifs and making fun of Wilkie Collins's giant forehead SO MUCH MORE.

7. I don't really care if I read enough women/minority authors. I very rarely register the gender or ethnicity of an author until I get to the back book flap, although since I lean heavily toward 19th c. British, it's a good bet I'm reading mostly white and male, and I generally like it that way.

8. I forget what 8 was for.

9. I was late to the Twilight bandwagon, but when I got there I read all 4 books in under a week. This is partly because I saved them for a Mexico vacation so I read them on a beach with unlimited tequila nearby, which probably kept me from throwing them across the room quite as often as I did. But I suspect I would have cruised through them no matter what.

10. I MADE IT! Let's see, 10 should be a big one. Hmm. Oh yes: I think that listening to an audiobook is just as beneficial - and sometimes more so - than reading the printed words on the page. Good audiobook narrators do their homework and know where the emphasis should be, which is something I often skip when I'm reading in bed at night. Audiobooks force you by their very nature to give each word the amount of time it takes to speak, and for classics especially I appreciate it.

What are your bookish confessions?

Wilkie's brain is big enough for all of them.