Ten Bookish Bad Habits I Want to Quit

06 October 2015

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created and hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and this week’s theme is bookish things I want to or have quit doing. This was a vary open topic (very open) and I decided to list the bookish habits I want to quit doing, because I have a lot of bookish bad habits.

 

I Will Stop Impulse Buying Books When I Don’t Have Time to Read Them

 

I think everyone who has ever read a Sunday Summary post by me can attest to my bad book buying habit. It’s only been getting worse, so I vow to try and calm it down a bit.

 

I Will Treat My Books Better

 

No more shall I dog-ear the pages of books when I can’t find a book mark. I will stop cracking the spines of my books. I will stop dropping my book in the bath (this happens more than you would think). And I will absolutely stop losing the dust jacket for me hardback books (it gets in the way when I’m reading them, but then I always forget where I put it).

 

The Library is a Good Thing – I Will Start Embracing It

 

I suppose this is less quitting something and more taking up something else. I like owning my books, but it’s an expensive habit. I will start borrowing a few books from the library, books I’m unsure about rather than committing to a more expensive books I end up not liking.

 

I Will Stop Pre-ordering Books I Have No Intention of Picking Up Immediately

 

This is me giving into the hype with books more than anything. I am terrible for it and I don’t know why. I am very suggestible at times, I see an advert on TV and for a good half an hour I will want whatever was advertised. I don’t know why I’m like that. The same is true for books. I will read something about a book and want it immediately, falling into the draw of the hype. But that fades and my pre-order of that book still arrives. I must stop.

 

I Will Stop Abandoning Series Partway Through and Not Going Back to Them

 

I sometimes get series fatigue. It isn’t that I’m not enjoying the book and is more I’m eager for a standalone story so I’m not heavily invested in a long intense series. Problem is, this happens when I’m reading a series and so I take a break… but then I don’t end up going back to that series as I’m intimidated by the catch up.

 

I Will Stop Skim Reading Books To Get To The Good Bit

 

I am a reader who wants to know everything instantly (but not really because that would be boring) and so I will sometimes find myself skim reading a book when the story has gotten really intense. That’s great, but it means I miss some of the detail and nuance of a book with my rushing so I must stop and smell the roses when it comes to reading. I don’t need to get everything all at once.

 

I Will Stop Being Intimidated by Big Books

 

I can’t be alone on this one, but I am intimidated by long reads. It makes no sense because I normally really enjoy them, but looking at a physical copy can leave me afraid to get started. And when I try reading long books on my Kindle I sometimes get upset when the percentage read doesn’t increase as fast as I would like. I often have the issue that if I spend too many days reading a book I will think there is something wrong with the book and risk abandoning it (no one said I made sense) and so big books are always risky if I spend too long reading I may end up abandoning. I think it’s because I start thinking of all the books I could be reading and feel bad. I don’t know.

 

I Will Stop Buying an Entire Series Before I’ve Even Read the First Book

 

I often invest in entire series before even reading the first one. It’s stupid really, because I may not even like the series, but I hate the idea of finishing the one book and being left without the rest of the series to immediately start reading. I don’t know why I’m like that. I think it’s because when I was younger and only had my pocket money to spend on books and the library for further reading material I was frequently left hanging partway through a series because the library didn’t have the next book available or I couldn’t afford to buy it. Stuff like that stays with you it seems and leads you to develop some bad spending habits.

 

I Will Stop Reading Reviews For Books I Want to Read

 

This is actually something I’ve already started doing. I used to love finding out what others thought about books I was dying to read, but then I started getting put off books I was excited to get reading. I don’t want others to put me off reading something, I would rather make my mind up for myself, so I have started avoiding reviews for books I haven’t read yet. I do try and save them from my favourite bloggers so I can go back and comment later, but that’s a new thing I’m trying to stick with. It’s harder than it seems. I’m always eager to know others thoughts so I sometimes click on without thinking. I need to stop.

 

I Will Stop Being Tempted by Deals and Buying Books to Complete a Deal

 

I am a menace for finding cool, supposedly money saving deals, like the 6 for £10 deal at The Works and Amazon’s 3 for £10 deal and various other deals I’ve found across the internet. I inevitably end up buying at least one book in these deals that I have contemplated reading but have never been motivated enough to buy. There is normally a reason I haven’t bought it sooner, so it ends up gathering dust in my room until I force myself to read it. Sometimes I enjoy it, but other times there is a reason for me not buying it. I will stop giving into temptation.

 

What are your bookish bad habits that you’re trying to quit?

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