My Top 10 Less Known Reading Habits

Perhaps, while not the greatest secret, I skip around sharing how I graduated from reading ‘Dick and Jane,’ straight to reading adult books. Today I actually vaguely recall learning to read from the book Dick and Jane. My best recollection was it was a fascinating day. More achingly however, I best remember my mother tucking us in at night reading many creepy fables from ‘Stories that never Grow Old’. There also was that darn Red Pony book by Steinbeck that irked the YKW out of me trying to read. Next thing I knew, I hated fables and parables and anything having to do with reading kiddie books. If I had to be traumatized like that, I might as well read the real deals, and so I did. Except for those few memories I never, ever read children's or young adult books. This is where my reading values and tenets grew roots.

I do not read books more than once, unless they are my own.

Calling myself a slow reader is really another way to phrase I’m a simplistic reader. Sometimes we tend to believe convoluted technical premises are ‘important intelligent’ work. It is not. The muse to life is so simple it's ridiculous. Ask any child!

The reason I do not read ebooks is due to aesthetics. I can’t curl up with electronic devices. I’m always in this sitting straight up, work-like mode, unlike when curled up with real physical books where I can chill and relax as I hold the book and turn its pages.

In a good reading month, I can read 2-3 books a week, unlike when I’m writing, when I likely won’t read at all.

I currently have almost 500 books on ‘My Keeper’ shelf; over 500 books on my DNF shelf; and more than 1000 books on ‘My To-read’ shelf. The remaining books I’ve read are lying around here and there, some possibly back in the library.

I usually base my reading selections on the author (or memoirist), or the first sentence of a synopsis.

I have read books I loved from the first page, to the last. Some I’ve put down and later returned to, to love to pieces. And then there are those I loathed...to pieces...all the way through, though admittedly, given the many books still sitting on my DNF shelf, were truly engaging.

My greatest reading peeve is investing my emotions in a story, only to realize at the end of the story, the author deliberately deceived the reader. The best example I can give, since this has happened more than once, is a hypothetical one. It’s like reading about a three-leg table, and all the reasons to use one, to arrive at page 321 and learn the author only uses four-leg tables, and oh by the way, you’ll have to read the next book to find out why. Now cliff-hangers aren’t necessarily a bad thing, but this kind of cliff-hanger will leave any sincere reader, not only sincerely duped, but sincerely turned off!

For this reason, I only recommend books I have thoroughly read and found engaging and redeeming to the end.

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