Hello hello hello! Welcome to this week’s Top Ten Tuesday! This week’s topic is: top 10 bookish confessions. I have to admit, you’ll probably know more about me after this post than I’d like (cuz some of this stuff, my friends don’t even know). But I hope you enjoy, and get a laugh out of my discomfort and general awkwardness.
1. When I was younger, I was so particular about keeping my books ABSOLUTELY perfect, that I’d only lend them out to trusted, book-loving friends. Even family members rarely laid their eyes, let alone their hands, on my books. Because of my obsessiveness (which now I’ll admit was WAY over the top), about half of my books look like they’ve never been touched. These days I prefer my books to look loved so their filled with dog-eared pages, margin notes, and highlighted passages (only my favourites of course).
2. I bawl, like full on sob, when things get too sad in books. I have to reserve sad stories for the privacy of my room because I can’t be seen crying on the train, now, can I? I don’t want to be that crazy girl who falls further and further apart with every turn of the page. Sadness is reserved for closed doors.
3. Libraries freak me out. Sure I read tons of books from the local library when I was a kid. But there came a point where I became aware of the smell of a book that’s visited an infinite amount of households and my stomach began to roll. The last straw for me was when the library had a (perhaps rumoured) case of bed bugs. But no. Nu-huh. Nadda. Not happened. I’m sorry. Clean books = a happy home.
4. I’ve recently begun to think of the story behind the story. I love reading marginalia and epigraphs of previous owners. This writing gives you a sense of where the book has been and who it’s encountered. It has a life of its own beyond the pages.
5. I have a terrible weakness for fancy notebooks. I probably have ten unused notebooks in my possession right now. I buy them with the best intention to handwrite my story ideas, but typing is so much faster. Yet, I can’t resist the beautiful covers, the soft leather, the gold foil. Sigh of pleasure.
6. I judge everyone on the books they own, although I wish I didn’t. It kills me to walk into someone’s house and see a bookshelf full of sappy romances (especially 50 Shades of Grey) or crappy teen fiction on the shelves of middle aged women. I can’t help it. I see a book shelf and I have to beeline for it and I’m generally sorry I checked. The same goes for people selling books at garage sales. I’ve been known to make comments (quietly) about peoples’ choice of books. I try to control it. Really.
7. I buy books simply for the purpose of owning them, even if I never get around to reading them. It’s a sickness. I go into a bookstore and I can’t leave without making a purchase. It’s always been this way. I’ve made a dedication to myself to work my way through the brand new TBR pile before I buy any more. I’m doing ok so far, but with online shopping so easily available, I do have a tendency for the occasional slip up.
8. I judge books by their covers.
9. I always had the fantasy that I’d be reading a book in a cute independent coffee shop or a library and the guy of my dreams would come up and be totally into reading and books in the same way I’m obsessed with them. It never happened and the love of my life has only read 3 and a half books in the 4 and a half years that I’ve known him. But once upon a time, I used to hope for a bookish love affair.
10. This is a big one. I, the literary lover and self-proclaimed book snob, loved Twilight. Like LOVED Twilight in the early years. I was one of those kids that when I was 14 was like, “OMG you HAVE to read this book.” I’m fairly certain I’m responsible for starting the craze in my school. I owned two copies of Twilight only because so many people read my first copy that it split apart in so many places and disintegrated into almost nothing. Now I look back at myself in shame, but it happened. Nothing I say or do can change that.
Worn Pages and Ink 