Bibliomeming

I don't do memes very often here, mostly because if I started I wouldn't know where to stop. If I tried to follow every meme from ShouldBeReading, for instance, I'd be so busy typing I wouldn't have time to read. (As it is, I only do the one, and that's mostly because I like quotations.)

I got this, though, from Seeking a Little Truth.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do you snack while reading? 

- I read on-and-off throughout the day, and sometimes during meals, so it's inevitable that I snack sometimes while reading.  I tend to want to snack while I'm reading, but given how often I read that would be an unhealthy habit. That association goes the other way around, too: if I'm about to eat or drink, I reach for something to read. If there's no book nearby, I'll go to TvTropes or go through the archives of Unshelved or Questionable Content.  Food intake = word intake for me.

What is your favourite drink while reading? 

-  I always have something to drink when I'm reading, usually just water.  I drink coffee in the morning and tea at meal times. Water is my main  "I want to be sipping something..." source.

Do you tend to mark your books while you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you? 

- I once tried writing in a book, and my hand autonomously slapped me.  Instead, I copy passages on the opposite (unused) sides of my bound journal and comment on them there. 

How do you keep your place? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book open flat? 

- I memorize page numbers or  take note of an endpoint -- a line of dialogue, that sort of thing. When I use bookmarks, I use anything -- napkins, actual bookmarks, pens, leaves, paperclips....

(Yeah. Leaves. I read under a tree sometimes.)

Fiction, non-fiction or both? 

- Both. Ever since 2006, when I decided I wanted to maintain a broad general knowledge, nonfiction became the major part of my reading diet. I started working in more fiction to balance things out -- I love a good story -- and I suppose by now they're even-ish.

Do you tend to read to the end of a chapter or can you stop anywhere?

- Since I read on and off throughout the day, I usually stop at the end of a sentence. I can leave off in mid-sentence, but I probably wouldn't.  

"Run for your life, there's an axe murderer coming!"

"Just onnnnne minute."

Are you the type of person to throw a book across the room or on the floor if the author irritates you? 

- No: I can't even bring myself to throw away or damage useless books from my fundamentalist Pentecostal days. I'll give the book a savage look and stop reading it if it's bad enough, but I'm a sissy when it comes to hurting them.

What are you currently reading? 

- I am working through a collection of essays by Isaac Asimov called The Roving Mind and am zipping through a short collection of local stories called The Other Side of Selma.

What is the last book you bought? 

- In a brick-and-mortar store, "Elizabeth the Queen" by Alison Weir, which is a biography of Elizabeth I beginning with her coronation. Online, I bought...Asimov's Chronology of Science and Discovery last weekish. 

Do you have a favourite time/place to read? 

- I'm a chronic reader: I read on and off throughout the day.  When school is in session, for instance, I read before class and sometimes during the lecture if I'm already familiar with the source and am only in class for the teacher's jokes. I also read at work as I can. I'm never far from a book, typically bringing a pocket-sized paperback with me on walks and keeping books in my car in case I get stopped by a train or stuck in traffic.   At home, I usuaully read devotedly for an hour or two a day ASIDE from the off-and-on stuff. 

All that said, I guess I like my Sunday mornings -- at school, I'd sit under this tree with a bottle of water all morning, just reading and listening to the birds and wind. When school's not in session, I open the curtains of my living room and sit on the couch, listening to soft music and reading until noon.

Do you prefer series books or stand-alones? 

- No real preference. I like being involved with book series, but most of my reading consists of stand-alone works, both fiction and non.

Is there a specific book or author you find yourself recommending over and over? 

- Not especially: I can gush forever about Isaac Asimov, and I'll easily recommend certain authors for certain subjects,  but I don't think there's one particular book that holds sway. 

If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop and look it up right away? 

- I play with it first. Etymology's one of my many interests, so I can usually take a word apart and derive some sort of meaning. I'll google it if I can't understand the passage without knowing the word. I write down unknown words in my journal, and then look up the definitions and derivations for them later. Also, if I suddenly want to know the origin of a turn of phrase ("Scot-free", for instance, or "I'll catch you on the flip side", I'll write that down and look it up later. )

How do you organize your books (by genre, title, author's last name, etc.)? 

- I don't have one specific organizational pattern at present:  in general, the closer to my bed a book is, the more I like it. If they're not in shelves, they're inside the ottoman or in a trunk at the foot of my bed. I group series together, and I stick large unwieldy books together, but that's about it as far as organization goes -- for now. 

See anything you recognize? (Click for larger image.) This is my bed's bookcase, which holds most of my favorites and a few odds-and-ends. There's a couple of books on German grammar in there, for instance.

Background noise or silence? 

- I can work with either, though I prefer some music -- usually soft classical music or instrumentals with an 'Eastern' feel.