That Randy Brown

Reading Habits

At lunch this weekend, my brother asked me about my reading habits--specifically if I read more than one book at a time, and if I had a specific genre that I read. The answers are yes and no, respectively.

I tend to read at least two books at a time, but my only hard rule on how many books I read at once is that I cannot start a new book if I do not have an available bookmark for it. This rule has predictably created somethings of a race between finishing books and acquiring more bookmarks. My favorite type of bookmarks are the magnetic clips--I recently got a set of celestial objects. My favorite bookmarks are the ones Steph made me when I was in college--simple laminated bookmarks with some of my favorite characters and sayings on them: a shark, some Pokémon, Mr. Incredible, and Butch from Animal Crossing.

I am almost always reading some fiction book; this year so far I have read Days at Morisaki Bookshop and Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City. This provides a filling for when I am reading and need to stop reading a book for some time (more on this in a moment) but I'm not done reading for the day. Even fiction is not spared the problem of needing to pause, and sometimes I'll also supplement with short story or poetry collections.

The consumability of text is a primary concern for me. I don't worry much about genre, either in fiction or nonfiction. I read science fiction, literary fiction, fantasy. Even though I've not read much in the way of romance novels or mysteries, though I'm not opposed to them: I love a good whodunit in theory, but I don't have any in practice. In nonfiction, I read primarily from a few major genres: Business and Personal Management, Science, Family and Parenting, and Social Sciences and Philosophy.