What are your bad reading habits? | Golden Skate

What are your bad reading habits?

makaihime

Final Flight
Joined
Feb 20, 2014
Just wanted to add some variety.

What are your bad reading habits?
Mine is buying too many books every time I go into the bookstore and never finishing the ones I already have. I have walls and walls of books yet almost 1/3 of them are still unread. :hopelessness: I am working on finishing the ones I have already, but there are times when temptation gets the best of me :no:

Also are you an E-book reader or do you prefer the paper version? :biggrin:
 

louisa05

Final Flight
Joined
Dec 3, 2011
Just wanted to add some variety.

What are your bad reading habits?
Mine is buying too many books every time I go into the bookstore and never finishing the ones I already have. I have walls and walls of books yet almost 1/3 of them are still unread. :hopelessness: I am working on finishing the ones I have already, but there are times when temptation gets the best of me :no:

Also are you an E-book reader or do you prefer the paper version? :biggrin:

Bad Habits:

I tend to be reading four or five books at once. This confuses me sometimes.

E-book or paper:

I used to be all about paper. But shortly after my genetic retinal disease began to show more symptoms including foggy/hazy vision and increased eye strain which causes both eye pain and headaches, my husband bought me a Kindle. I am completely converted now as I can read as much as I want on it without problems. And I get really disgusted with people who curse that technology without thinking about people who have vision impairments (and there are many vision conditions outside of blindness that can cause problems). A book is the words the author wrote not the means by which those words are delivered. You can use an e-reader and be a book lover.
 

Alba

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 26, 2014
Like louisa I tend to read 3 or 4 books at once. This is thanks to kindle which I've become an addict.
Love the paper though and still buy them. I love the smell of the old books in particular.

The good news is that I finish the books I start.
One of the reasons I start so many books is because if read one genre for long I start dreaming it at night. I love mysteries, history (cold war, WWII, middle east etc.) crime etc. so usually I do have nightmares. :slink::biggrin:
Therefore I have to change the subject, for a while, when books are huge.
 

samson

Medalist
Joined
Aug 10, 2012
I can't leave a bookstore without buying at least one if not three or four books. I too have a shelf full of books only a third way read! It's always all the more satisfying though when I finally conquer one of them. :)
 

heyang

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
I have a habit of buying books with the best intention of reading them and then they sit on the shelf for years while I do more 'light' reading.

I still buy some paperback books because I know I can pass them on to others to read while Kindle does not always allow sharing. I buy most of my e-books via sites like Book Bub, Pixel'o'Ink or Bargain Booksy. Also, if you 'like' your favorite authors on facebook, they sometimes alert when their e-books are bargain priced temporarily.

I have several books that I re-read but I don't want to pay twice to get the e-book edition - sometimes costing more than what I paid originally.

I won't buy the ebook when the print version is less expensive.
 

skatedreamer

Medalist
Joined
Feb 18, 2014
Country
United-States
I confess to pretty much all of the "sins" mentioned upthread, especially buying/starting a book and then flitting on to something else before finishing it. In terms of paper or e-books, there are pros & cons to both:

Paper pros: you can lend them, write in them (sometimes I make notes in the margins to keep track of characters), and when you look at them on your shelf it's like saying hello to old friends. And there's something for me about the feeling of a paper book in the hand; maybe it's just because it's familiar. And especially, the pleasure of browsing in bookstores and coming up with something totally unexpected that you might not have considered reading otherwise.

Paper cons: limited shelf space in small apartments! And you have to dust them and older ones start to deteriorate. I also have a really bad habit of not putting them back where they belong but that's a "me" issue, not a book issue. :disapp:

E-book pros: you can carry your whole collection w/ you wherever you are. Environmental advantage of not using paper/ink. And everything louisa05 said.

E-book cons: often more expensive than paper (can't understand why) and you can't always share/lend them. The thing that bothers me most is that they're really starting to put bookstores and printing companies out of business.

The bottom line for me is that the format doesn't really matter. What's important is that people read, find new food for thought, and exchange ideas. :)
 

louisa05

Final Flight
Joined
Dec 3, 2011
I confess to pretty much all of the "sins" mentioned upthread, especially buying/starting a book and then flitting on to something else before finishing it. In terms of paper or e-books, there are pros & cons to both:

Paper pros: you can lend them, write in them (sometimes I make notes in the margins to keep track of characters), and when you look at them on your shelf it's like saying hello to old friends. And there's something for me about the feeling of a paper book in the hand; maybe it's just because it's familiar. And especially, the pleasure of browsing in bookstores and coming up with something totally unexpected that you might not have considered reading otherwise.

Paper cons: limited shelf space in small apartments! And you have to dust them and older ones start to deteriorate. I also have a really bad habit of not putting them back where they belong but that's a "me" issue, not a book issue. :disapp:

E-book pros: you can carry your whole collection w/ you wherever you are. Environmental advantage of not using paper/ink. And everything louisa05 said.

E-book cons: often more expensive than paper (can't understand why) and you can't always share/lend them. The thing that bothers me most is that they're really starting to put bookstores and printing companies out of business.

The bottom line for me is that the format doesn't really matter. What's important is that people read, find new food for thought, and exchange ideas. :)

Don't know about every e-reader, but you can make notes, highlight, etc...in an e-book on Kindle. It just works a bit differently than in a paper book. I actually do it. And I never wrote in paper books other than textbooks and teaching manuals.

I actually access most e-books I read via the library for free. Others, on Amazon anyway, are usually a few dollars cheaper than trade paperbacks and rarely cost as much as hardbacks.

There are still some books that I get in traditional form. Anything with a lot of pics/diagrams or with sentimental meaning to me. But it does take me much longer to read them now.

When I was all paper, I read 2 or 3 books at a time. With Kindle, it is up to 4 or 5; probably on account of it being easy to have that many accessible at once. I do finish most of them, though.
 

Dee4707

Ice Is Slippery - Alexie Yagudin
Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
Country
United-States
When you get a book that someone says is the best book in the whole world and you start reading it and don't like it, do you feel compelled to finish it??
 

louisa05

Final Flight
Joined
Dec 3, 2011
When you get a book that someone says is the best book in the whole world and you start reading it and don't like it, do you feel compelled to finish it??

I used to finish every book I started no matter how awful it was. I finally stopped torturing myself that way just in the last few years. I still occasionally keep reading something hoping it will get better or to see how bad it actually ends up. It is never worth it!
 

Alba

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 26, 2014
When you get a book that someone says is the best book in the whole world and you start reading it and don't like it, do you feel compelled to finish it??

It happened to me once. I did finish it but I'm not going to do it again.
 

foruiz

Final Flight
Joined
Mar 17, 2014
My annoying habit when I read a book is that that I press my thumb deeply on the book's pages. I just like the feeling of my thumb moving back and forth, it has a nice tactile sensation but it does emit odd rubbing sounds and others find it irritating. To them maybe the sound I make might similar to nails screeching on black boards. :unsure:

I still prefer real books from e-books. And since I am too caught up with academic readings, I still have lots of books lying around that I haven't read, much less removed from it's original plastic covers yet. This does not stop me from my hoarding tendencies come book sales, though.
 

heyang

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
One of the things I prefer about a physical book is that if the pace is getting too slow, I admit that I'll flip ahead to see if anything on the future pages jump out to me.....or just want to see how many pages left in a chapter.

E-readers do allow you to flip back, but you have to remember your location or page.... My Kindle can tell me how much left to a chapter, but the earlier editions cannot.

I just read a review of the latest Kindle, and it's all positive except for the cost. It allows you to flip forward, too and reportedly, if you put a book next to the reader and take a picture, you almost can't tell the difference between Book vs Kindle Voyage. Sigh.... can't justify the cost of replacing my current Kindle that still works perfectly well.
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Country
United-States
One thing that I love about my Kindle Fire HD is that I can watch British Eurosport HD for free and cast it to my TV! It's great. You would never know it was not a normal cable station.

I read library books on my Kindle, but I prefer paper for books I want to keep. I have had too many old documents became unreadable because the programs that created them became obsolete.

And you can read your paper book in the bath or on the beach, and you can fall asleep on top of it without it breaking.

And yes, I have books I haven't read. And sometimes I accidentally dogear pages.
 
Last edited:

iluvtodd

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 5, 2004
Country
United-States
When you get a book that someone says is the best book in the whole world and you start reading it and don't like it, do you feel compelled to finish it??

Yup, that has happened. Plodding through a book, even though I couldn't get into the story.

Dozing off before I go to sleep while reading even though I am very interested in what I'm reading.
 

louisa05

Final Flight
Joined
Dec 3, 2011
My annoying habit when I read a book is that that I press my thumb deeply on the book's pages. I just like the feeling of my thumb moving back and forth, it has a nice tactile sensation but it does emit odd rubbing sounds and others find it irritating. To them maybe the sound I make might similar to nails screeching on black boards. :unsure:

I still prefer real books from e-books. And since I am too caught up with academic readings, I still have lots of books lying around that I haven't read, much less removed from it's original plastic covers yet. This does not stop me from my hoarding tendencies come book sales, though.

A book on an e-reader is not any less real. Physical books or paper books is the better word choice.

If I want to flip ahead on Kindle, I just bookmark where I am so I can go back. Not difficult at all.
 

Sam-Skwantch

“I solemnly swear I’m up to no good”
Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 29, 2013
Country
United-States
I sometimes let my mind wander off. Even on books I really enjoy at some point my mind just starts to return to the real world. I have a friend who reminds me off Hermione Granger and during Harry potter I would find myself thinking of her. Then I would realize I wasn't actually reading or better yet comprehending so I'd have to back track to the beginning of hopefully only one page or two :slink:

I too am afflicted by purchasing too many books. I don't like electronic readers but see the many reasons some people do :)
 
Last edited:

MalAssada

Medalist
Joined
Jun 28, 2014
I get myself carried away with critics sometimes and I compare books. I. E: I once liked T. Then I read H and instantly despised T, because H is way better than T. Also, I don't know how to say it in English, but I refuse to read "modinha" books. A "modinha" book is a book everyone is reading and everyone is reading simply because everyone is reading it and not because it is a good book (aka John Green books).

Either I buy the paper version or I download an online copy for free. I don't think it is fair to charge the same amount for a book when no paper or ink was wasted ($$$). Also, I'm in love with a book's smell and the chances of someone robbing a book are lower than someone robbing a Kindle (Brazil's problems...).

If I have to choose between a 1st person book and a 3rd person book, I'll go for the 3rd person one. Same with present and past (past is way better IMO). I confess I refuse to read The Hunger Games because it is both in 1st person and told in present :eek::
 

Sandpiper

Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 16, 2014
1) I have to finish. Every. Darn. Thing. Even if I hate it. Especially if I hate it, because I feel uncomfortable making a judgement about something I haven't finished. And since it's so awful, I want to rant about it to my friends! But I can't do that if I haven't finished, right...?

2) I tend to take a long time getting to books I actually bought. Whereas I read books I take from the library quickly, because they have due dates and fines.

3) I don't read as much as I used to.

4) For a period of time, I used to haunt used book sales and end up with a bunch of books I never get to. Thankfully, I've cured myself of this.

5) I think e-books are eeeeevil.
 

skatedreamer

Medalist
Joined
Feb 18, 2014
Country
United-States
I get myself carried away with critics sometimes and I compare books. I. E: I once liked T. Then I read H and instantly despised T, because H is way better than T. Also, I don't know how to say it in English, but I refuse to read "modinha" books. A "modinha" book is a book everyone is reading and everyone is reading simply because everyone is reading it and not because it is a good book (aka John Green books).

For a long time I simply would not read the "Dragon Tattoo" series b/c it seemed like everyone else was reading those books. I finally broke down last year when the first one turned up on sale @ Barnes & Noble...and got totally hooked! In this case, everyone was reading them b/c they're that good, at least in my opinion. Fascinating main characters, wonderfully atmospheric, and enough plot twists to give you whiplash.

Come to think of it, I resisted the Harry Potter books for a long time, too. That's all over now, though... :biggrin:
 

MalAssada

Medalist
Joined
Jun 28, 2014
Funny, I also resisted to the Millenium series for years, but in my case it's because of the title in Portuguese: The Men Who Didn't Love Women. I always had the impression it was a gay romance and my family is pretty conservative (heck, they think Alex Vause is a guy :laugh2:). Eventually I read it and was also hooked, but as you can see my habit above I was put away because of critics of the second book.

What do you think, should I buy it? The current government may be bad, but they have something called "Culture fund" and I have over 200 dollars to spend in books :love:
 
Top