19 bookish things

 

I turned 19 in May and along with the whole OH GOD IT’S MY LAST YEAR OF BEING A TEEN crisis, I thought it might be fun to share 19 things about myself! But then I remembered how truly bad I am at coming up with things to write about myself and so decided to write 19 bookish things about myself because I can never not run out of things to say about bookish stuff. (And yes this post is two months after my birthday and so technically I am 19-years-old-and-two-months but shhhh.)


1) I like reading multiple books at once but they all have to be in different genres otherwise I get confused! Having a fantasy, a contemporary and a non-fiction on the go at the same time is fun, reading three fantasies at the same time is not.

2) My book page wall in my bedroom is hands down one of my proudest achievements. A part of me would like to cover my whole room in book pages but a bigger part of me can’t be bothered to go to all that effort so at this point in time it’s not happening.

3) Illustrated book covers give me SO MUCH HAPPINESS. I can count about a million awful book covers with humans smushed on them while I can count probably...three?...illustrated book covers I don't like?!

4) The books I find the hardest to enjoy are contemporary because 9/10 they’re a miss not a hit BUT IRONICALLY a lot of my favourite books of all time are contemporaries...

5) Contemporaries over 600 pages long are 600 PAGES TOO LONG. Be short and sweet and to the point, Contemporaries, leave 600 pages to Fantasy instead, please!

6) I read much faster on kindle than I do physical book but fall into a reading slump much faster if all I do is read on a kindle.

7) I like organizing my books by colour the best over any other shelving arrangements. People who organize alphabetically are amazing but I could never do it plus rainbows are so nice.

8) I prefer reading soft covers over hardbacks but definitely prefer owning hardbacks over soft covers even though its cost me future generations of children to afford them, dammit.

9) I fall into really bad reading slumps that can last up to 6 months. I’m still kind of in a bit of one that’s lasted from last year but I’m slowly climbing out of the last of it.



10) I’m quite a fast reader and read on average 150-200 books a year normally, however...this year has been a pretty terrible reading year and I think at this point I’ll be lucky if I scrape past 100 which is very sad!

11) I don’t use bookmarks even though I love the idea for them i just find them generally annoying to use. I end up using scraps of paper or another book I NEVER fold the pages though I’m not that terrible.

12) I used to never cry over books because I hate, hate, hate crying and also because I have an ice-cold heart but over the years a very small number of books have melted my tear ducts a little. I’ve wept over A Man Called Ove, sobbed through Pix and Me and Me Before You and teared up at Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and Wintersong.

13) I once read the Harry Potter series in nine days and now I struggle to read one book every nine days and no I’m not crying, YOU’RE CRYING.

14) Fantasy, historical fiction and anything with lots of magic, lovely writing or witches sprinkled in will always be my fav books to read about.

15) I honestly don’t understand how some people manage to eat/read/drink at the same time?? TELL ME YOUR SECRETS!! I literally just can’t do it, the concentration and pressure to both read words and eat food at the same time is far too great.

16) I really wish I could listen to more audiobooks but I find it so hard!! I read quite fast and find every narrator’s voice is too slow even when I speed it up, or just doesn’t doesn’t suit the book in my mind. I’ll admit Stephen Fry reads a mean Harry Potter (the only audiobooks I stan) but I haven’t been able to enjoy any other audiobooks.

17) I can’t stand insta-love and it’s a 95% given that if it appears early on in a book I’m reading, I’ll be like BYYEEEEE and throw the book across the room DNF it.

18) I’m so bad when it comes to reading classics and it is something I did want to do more of this year but it’s so haaaaard. My TBR is already big enough, I don’t feel like I have the energy to throw some classics up on there as well.

19) I legit want a library like Belle from Beauty and the Beast one day…

So there are 19 bookish things about me/kind of! It was way harder than I expected so don’t ever expect a post with facts JUST about ME in it haha. Do you have any classics recommendations? Like what’s a good author/book to start with?