Reading in Purple

The Booklikes folk asked what our reading habits are on their blog recently, so I thought I'd answer their questions! Read on!

Do you have a certain place in your home for reading? Nope! But I do usually read on the couch or, sometimes, in bed. There's not really a lot of other options, unfortunately, as my tiny NYC apartment doesn't have a bathtub big enough for me to enjoy a nice hot bubble bath and a good book.

Bookmark or random piece of paper? Bookmarks, unless I can't find one or I start a book away from home and don't have one handy. A number of the stores I go to or buy from online send free bookmarks, so I tend to use those.

Can you just stop reading or do you have to stop read after a chapter / certain number of pages? Technically, I can just stop reading wherever, so long as I've finished a paragraph. I have a strong preference for ending at a chapter break, though. I try to do that when I'm stopping for the night.

Do you eat or drink while read? All the time, especially drinking. I'll usually have water or sometimes tea with me. If I'm snacking, it's usually just something small and/or easy to grab. I can't do greasy snacks while I read, of course, because that would mess up my books' pages.

Multitasking: music or TV while reading? Depends. Wordless music, like soundtracks from movies or classical music, is ok, as is chill, trance-like music. TV/Movies have to be ones I've seen so many times they are literally just background noise. There are some days when I can't focus at all if there's noise, so those days I either have to turn everything off or disappear into the bedroom if I can't turn stuff off.

One book at a time or several at once? I've usually got several going at once. I have a limited attention span, so unless I get really sucked in by the book I'm reading, I find myself jumping around a lot.

Reading at home or everywhere? If I can bring a book, I will. I read on the train, I've read at work (after finishing my work, guys), I read before appointments, at my boyfriends' mom's house (when it's quiet enough). My favorite place ever to read is on the balcony of my cabin on a cruise ship. I've taken two cruises and nothing compares to reading as I listen to the ocean crashing around against the ship while I head for an island far away from the smelly hell that is New York City.

Reading out loud or silently in your head? Silently in my head, usually, unless I really need it to sink in or I'm feeling quirky. When I first started reading Pride & Prejudice, I read the first two or three chapters out loud in the worst British accent imaginable, just because I could. 

Do you read ahead or even skip pages? Nope, although I was recently tempted to by the plethora of unwanted, poorly written sex scenes in Breath of Fire. Fortunately, the author got over it and I was able to resist that temptation.

Barking the spine or keeping it like new? I try to preserve my spines so I can make the books last longer. I read mostly mass market paperbacks when I can, and those don't last quite as long, so it's important to me that the books not get destroyed the first time I ever read them. It's nearly impossible with the longer books, of course.

Do you write in your books? Not normally. Non-fiction is more likely to get a few notes written in here and there or passages highlighted if there's something I want to go back and reference.