BBAW Day 2 - Alternative Questions

Today is interview swap day in Book Blogger Appreciation Week, but since I didn't sign up till yesterday I didn't get a person to interview. Therefore I am sort of self- interviewing and answering some questions about my reading habits!

Do you snack while you read? If so, favorite reading snack? - I do sometimes, it depends on my mood. Lots at the moment, and mostly biscuits and occasionally apples and grapes. Anything I can eat with one hand, really!

Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you? - I used to annotate books a lot while I was at university. Since then I don't, because I tend to go a little over the top with pencil notes and end up not being able to read the books anymore, but lately I've been thinking I probably need to start at least keeping notes as I read because I think having no reference point is part of what's making it so difficult for me to write reviews that are as coherent as I'd like them to be lately.

How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book flat open? - I mostly dog-ear my books, although I do always feel bad about it. The exception is graphic novels, which I ALWAYS use a bookmark of sorts for, although sometimes that will be whatever piece of paper I have hanging around  rather than a conventional bookmark. I used to leave books around flat open when I was a child, but then I realised that my books were falling apart a lot quicker, so I stopped that. Dog-earing is the habit I'd like to break next, as I love bookmarks and if I actually used them it would give me an excuse for collecting them!

Fiction, Non-fiction, or both? - Both, but I tend to read more fiction and read it a lot faster than non-fiction, even when the non-fiction is great. For example, I finished three fiction novels last week, but I've been reading a great Roald Dahl biography for around three weeks and am nowhere near done with it yet.

Hard copy or audiobooks? - Hard copy. I do enjoy audiobooks but I tend to use them as occassional relaxation rather than regular reading. 

Are you a person who tends to read to the end of chapters, or are you able to put a book down at any point? - I can pretty much put a book down whenever, it doesn't have to be the end of a chapter.

If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop to look it up right away? - Not always, it depends how lazy I am!

What are you currently reading? - Some girly book I  can't remember the name of, Storyteller: The Life of Roald Dahl by Donald Sturrock, and I'm just about to start a re-read of Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome. 

What is the last book you bought? - The Sherlock Holmes Case Book by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Are you the type of person that only reads one book at a time or can you read more than one at a time? - I can read more than one at a time, again it depends on my mood. At the moment I'm feeling really unsettled with my reading, so I keep starting new books in the hope that something will grab me and hold my attention. 

Do you have a favorite time of day and/or place to read? - I love reading on the train, because there's nothing else I should be doing, and it means I can shut off from everything that's going on around me. On that basis, probably on the way home from work just because I can read to turn off from everything that's happened during the day and just have some time for myself. 

Do you prefer series books or stand alone books? - I know my answer keeps being 'it depends on my mood', but so much of my reading does. If I'm in the mood for it, I love a good fantasy series, but I have to have the books lined up before I start otherwise I find that by the time I get hold of the next book I'll have forgotten what happened in the previous book and that's just annoying. If a book is really great, it's always nice if it's part of a series because then it doesn't have to be over, but I also love stand alone books (for example The Night Circus) because sometimes they're just kind of perfect on their own.

Is there a specific book or author that you find yourself recommending over and over? - The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran. I literally push these books on people all the time. Aside from that, I also find that I recommend F. Scott Fitzgerald a lot. 

How do you organize your books? (By genre, title, author’s last name, etc.?) - It varies. At the moment, I have categorized them by 'read' and 'unread' and then divided the unread by genre and then alphabetically within genre. 

So basically my reading habits are very much dependent on how I'm feeling at the time. And I have a lot of reading habits I'd like to break, but hey don't we all?