What Kind Are You?

I’m easy to categorize when it come to books, I’m pretty much a bit of everything, reader, collector, obsessive hoarder... I buy stuff for books, things that look likes books, pictures of books. Everything.

My  co-BLM producer Baju, I’d categorize as a reader. She gets most of her books from libraries.

I have to own a copy. Simply must. Have to have it on the shelf. Have to read it too, even if my lifetime fails to live up to that expectation. (I worked it out once, if I live to about 120, I should be able to read all the books I’ve bought. Problem is I’m still buying three or four a week!). Don’t get me wrong, I never bought a book I didn’t intend reading. I really do want to work my way through every single last one of them. And if they figure out how to extend life indefinitely, I might.

So how do you read? One of the wonderful things about my obsession is I’m intensely interested in other peoples reading habits. I don’t care if you read books on subjects I’m never going to have the slightest interest in, the fact that you love to read somehow bonds me to you on an undefinable level.

For me this also extends to writers. Now it may be a cliché, but I can’t help believing that almost every avid bibliophile thinks they have a book (or two, or three) in them. I think this has something to do with this same bond that crosses the collector/reader/obsessive types. After all, writers are perhaps the ultimate reader right? They read so much that the ideas either coagulate into a new one or just overflow their reading brains to the point that a new book has to come out? Maybe?

We might not all actually have a book in us. But I don’t think it’s unhealthy to think we might. I’ve tried my hand at writing for pleasure and it does exercise the same brain muscle that reading does for me. I think my appreciation of the written word is enhanced by my attempts to write, so I’d recommend giving it a go.

It’s another facet to your reading hobby/habit/obsession which is worth exploring, but even if you don’t, sit back once in a while and think about how you read or appreciate the written word in your life. If nothing else it might just focus your mind on where you want to dedicate your limited lifetime’s worth of reading time to....