My reading rules.

Over at BookRiot today, there's a post about personal reading rules:

When I started thinking about this piece, I thought about it as just a list of my (many!) seemingly arbitrary rules for reading. Once I got started, though, I discovered that those rules actually tell you so much about me that they double as personality traits. In fact, they say so much about me that I’m actually a little uncomfortable sharing them now, but I’m going to anyway because I’m done with the piece; this paragraph is actually, chronologically, the last one I’ve written, and who wants to waste all that effort?

Which (obviously) made me think about my own set of personal reading rules.

1. I'm a note taker. If I don't have pencil and paper at hand—or am too lazy to get up and go find pencil and paper—I will dog ear pages. Yes, that's right, I AM AN UNREPENTANT DOGEAR-ER.

1a. Since I realize that this confession will probably result in you all shunning me forevermore—you're totally going to cross the street to avoid me at BookExpo next week, aren't you?—I'm going to go ahead and ADMIT ALL: Yes, I even dogear library books. (I always un-dogear before I return them, though.

1b. If it makes you feel any better, I dogear the BOTTOM of the page, not the top.

1c. I don't write in books. Ever. I do use the Note feature on my Kindle a hella lot, though.

2. When Josh gets ready to read a new paperback, he preemptively breaks its spine, and I flinch every single time.

3. Halfway through any given hardback, the book jacket starts driving me bananas and I take it off and throw it behind the couch. I retrieve and replace when I'm done reading.

4. The only genre I seem to be capable of reading without going into Literary Analysis mode? Vaguely smutty historical romances.

5. I've said this before, but it should be included: I'm a really, REALLY visual reader. When I'm wrapped up in a book, it's like I stop seeing the words and have an actual movie playing in my head: therefore, I had to stop listening to audiobooks in the car because I kept running stop signs.

6. I'm a vocal supporter of Putting The Book Down If It Isn't Working For You, but I find that I rarely actively do that myself. More often, I realize months later that I set something down and never returned to it. 

7. I'm a one-book-at-a-time girl. And I always have at least two back-ups in my bag, JUST IN CASE.

So. YOUR TURN.