Top Ten Tuesday

Posted September 15, 2015 by Nicky in General / 33 Comments

This week’s theme from The Broke and the Bookish is… a freebie! So I’ve decided to tell you about my ten weird bookish habits/facts.

  1. If I’m going to stop reading mid chapter, it has to be at a scene break, or the end of the first paragraph on a page.
  2. The first paragraph on the page is not the right place to stop if it fills more than half the page.
  3. I don’t like stopping on odd-numbered chapters.
  4. I mark two chapters ahead with a bookmark. Sometimes there are five or six bookmarks in the book, all of them for points I haven’t reached yet.
  5. I like to whisper the words to myself. I’m synaesthetic, so it adds an extra layer for me. The mouth-feel/taste of some words is just great — like “steps” and “stepped” and “crept” and “slipped” and…
  6. I like reading statistics. But if I can’t have ’em accurate, I get sulky and won’t collect them anymore. So if I’m reading a book that I have in dead tree and ebook, I have to read one copy or the other. For the statistics.
  7. I have the Kobo Reading Life badges for literally every time of day, which requires reading five times in each time period. I have literally read around the clock five times minimum with my Kobo.
  8. I fidget while I read. Favourite fidget point, ever since I was tiny, has always been my stuffed hippo’s ears. She is on her second or third set of replacement ears… And she is a very well-read hippo.
  9. I read standing up sometimes. I have a standing desk, and I’m also allowed to read during my volunteering shift, sooooo…
  10. My teddies have a hammock above my bunk bed, at my parents’ house. They share it with books every night, just in case I wake up and need to read.

Anyone? Just me?

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33 responses to “Top Ten Tuesday

  1. Fascinating rituals, Nikki! Mine are a little more boring, like always having at least one bookmark handy — I hate broken spines — and trying to finish at the end of a section or chapter (unless I can’t stay awake any longer). Oh, and mentally composing a blog review as I read it — it’s one way of engaging, regardless of whether the book is good or bad.

  2. Those really are some interesting habits, many of which I haven’t heard before! I guess for me, I’m the type who will read the book out loud if it has amazing prose. I don’t know why but if it’s Laini Taylor’s writing or Brandon Sanderson’s, or anyone with amazing prose, really, I can’t help but just want to hear them too!

    Faye at The Social Potato

  3. arbieroo

    Nos. 1 and 2 apply to me! I don’t like stopping on odd numbered pages, though, unless it’s a chapter break; I’ll still be re-starting on an even numbered page then.

    Synaesthesia is associated with autism but I don’t have it. Flagon and some of his friends are always on the bed with me; they often sit on my shoulder or even my head when I’m reading and have done so for the last twenty years or so…dunno if that makes them well-read or not, though!

    Is there any function to marking the “future chapters”?

    • Agreed, I don’t like stopping on odd numbered pages either.

      Me and my mother both have it! The word “torture” tastes like dark chocolate… make of that what you will. (I also stim in various ways, avoid eye contact, and a couple of other autism-associated behaviours. We’re not sure whether I learned them from my probably-on-the-spectrum dad and sister, or if I’m somewhere on the spectrum too.)

      Helps keep me aware of how long it’ll take me to get to the next even-numbered chapter if I need to stop, mostly. My sister does it too, I think, mostly for a sense of progress or to help reach reading goals!

  4. Cait @ Paper Fury

    I FIDGET TOO. Usually I’m jiggling my leg/foot while I read but mostly I fiddle bookmarks. I RUIN BOOKMARKS THIS WAY. GAH. And then I lose them and my dog finds them and eats them and basically bookmarks + me = destruction. I have to read 100-pages in the first sitting. HAVE TO. After that nothing is set in stone, but yeah…it’s 100 pages.

      • arbieroo

        I do some low amplitude leg twitching when I read, too. I am now wondering if it’s a form of stimming or not. I don’t seem to have any other habits that might be called stimming.

        • I bounce slightly, and that’s definitely stimming for me, and something I’ve only really noticed lately! I just got a fidget ring which takes some of the need for that away (basically a ring with two parts where one part rotates around the other).

  5. Great topic, Nikki! Your quirks sound delightful and make me feel better about mine. I like that you keep your teddies – I like soft things as well though Kiddo has now adopted my favourite, a stuffed chinchilla, so its days of peaceful slumber on our bookshelf are gone.

    I can’t stand it if anyone tries to read what I’m reading (like looking over my shoulder). It drives me nuts. And I keep a list of “good” words and “bad” words in both English and Slovenian because some of them sound really great and I just hate the others.
    I can read anywhere – which is cool because I really don’t have much free time these days so I squeeze in a couple of pages whenever I can.

    • Oh, I could never let a kid get hold of my Helen. She’s too fragile and still far too necessary! She came to my exam with me this week, heh.

      Ooh, I like the idea of a list of good and bad words! I just need to say words to remember which ones are bad for me — they taste eugh. Like detergent and stuff like that!

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