Let me tell you right away that this is going to be a boring post. I have already shared with you my best tips on how to get more reading done, I’ve got nothing else to give on that front. But I’ve been asked – many times – how I, personally, read. When exactly? On paper or Kindle? In what position? OK, nobody has asked the latter, yet. I honestly don’t find my reading habits very fascinating. However, considering that these questions keep resurfacing, here we go. You asked.

I read roughly 100 books a year, a bit less than 10 books a month, on average. The volume obviously varies depending on how busy I am in the office and what’s going on in my life. Sometimes, the correlation isn’t that straightforward: stressful periods at work might mean I read lots of fantasy to disengage, while sometimes I’m home alone, fully able to read, but spend the time watching skincare hauls on Youtube.

Broadly speaking, I read (and in this context, I mean reading books) every day, even if only a little bit. There are exceptions: I’ve had periods where I was in the office until Midnight almost every day and working until the morning was not unusual. It is pretty challenging to integrate regular reading into that kind of a schedule (although when I get home/to the hotel by 2am, I might still read a bit* – I’ve got witnesses). Going to the cinema or a concert of course eats into potential reading time. I also find it nearly impossible to read after two units of alcohol, so party nights are out as well*.

During weekdays, I tend to read after I’ve put my daughter to bed – we start the process around 9pm and I tend to sit with her until she falls asleep (sometimes reading or writing on my iPad). If it’s my boyfriend’s turn to put her to bed, I can start somewhat earlier. On days when I have other things to do, like blogging or life admin, I may manage just 30 minutes. When the book is really engaging, I’ve been known to read until 4am to finish it. As I’m attempting to be a grown-up, the goal is not to start compulsive reads (in my case usually SFF) in the evening, to avoid the aforementioned scenario. I may also get some reading done during my lunchbreak, although that doesn’t happen as often as I’d like.

A good chunk of my weekends tends to be dedicated to reading. Especially if I’m alone, this can be pretty much all I do, so these days I often take the book and go to a café or a park, to ensure I also get my 10 000 steps done. If my family is around – and most of the time they are – the reading opportunities are less plentiful, but it’s very unusual for me not to read at least a couple of hours on Saturday-Sunday. My daughter is already 10 and doesn’t need my constant presence. Often, we do something together on Saturday, just the two of us, leaving me more time on Sunday.

I’m mostly a spontaneous, mood-based reader, but I love making lists: I’m constantly doing research and writing down books I’d like to read. Bookstagram is a great source, as is Goodreads; I also like to go through The Guardian’s and FT’s book section, the reviews on The New Yorker and The New York Times. Occasionally, I buy the London/Paris Review of Books and there are less mainstream sources like John Sandoe’s catalogue or tor.com, my go-to for SFF reviews. Whenever I meet people who love reading, I ask for their recommendations – especially if they’ve read a lot on a topic I like, but don’t know much about. I have lists of books on my iPad, random notebooks, Amazon.com, everywhere. I find that the research and list-making is not just enjoyable (all that anticipation), it’s enlightening: you’ll learn about writers, topics, opinions, conversations around books; especially with non-fiction, you can become much better informed by just reading the reviews.

I go to a bookshop almost every week, sometimes several times a week. As I can more-or-less afford to buy every book I’m interested in, this is also what I tend to do. I definitely buy more than I read: some find it wasteful and silly, I mostly don’t. I like to have books around me and I love it when I suddenly get the urge to read something that I bought a while ago, as has just happened with The Bloody Chamber. When I’m in a good reading groove, it doesn’t bother me to have lots of unread books (I have more than 200, certainly), it’s when I’m in a reading slump that all those books can feel overwhelming. Then again, I feel crappy in a reading slump anyway.

As I said, I make lists and I also make vague plans for the upcoming month/year***. These are not definitive and are never 100% realised. That’s perfectly fine by me. In fact, I have discovered that if I force myself too much to read a specific book, I can block myself completely and not get any reading done at all. I’ve got a few books that I REALLY think I should read, but I’ve kind of paralysed myself by thinking that too intensely. The best chances for a book to get read are always right after I have bought it, when the excitement is at its peak.

I have a tendency to read several books at the time, because I’m greedy and impatient. Experience shows, however, that it works better if I focus on one book or two, maximum three. It is fine to have a couple of options for different moods (let’s say a novel, a poetry book and some non-fiction), but having seven similar books on the go inevitably means I’ll drop something. I do abandon books and in general, this is not an issue for me. The problem is that being too fragmented in my reading might make me quit something I actually really like, so I generally try to keep the number of active reads under control****. What I also find annoying, is that I struggle more with big books. This is entirely natural, of course, and I firmly believe that a 500+ page book should be extra good, to make it worth the investment of time; I just would occasionally like to display more perseverance. With weighty tomes it actually often helps to have something light and quick to read in parallel, for (almost) instant gratification.

I also have an inclination to read in clusters: I might have a period where I read several books on race or focus on pre-history or have a science fiction streak. I find it great for retaining information and going into a subject more deeply; on the other hand, it can be draining – once my enthusiasm for a topic/mood runs out, I often don’t want to hear about it for half a year. At other times, my state of mind changes more quickly and I read a book about war in Kosovo followed by a French book mostly about penises, followed by a collection by a deaf poet, followed by a time-travel hard SF romance in letters, followed by feminist fairy tales, followed by a graphic novel about Arvo Pärt (all this just happened). Variety is acutely important to me and if I had to stick to one genre or style, I would find reading extremely difficult. I read contemporary literary fiction, classics (mostly modern ones), non-fiction (mainly about history, sciences, society, politics, obscure topics), essays, memoirs, poetry, fantasy, science fiction, YA, comics, an occasional thriller or detective story. I’m probably forgetting something.

I used to be a big rereader, which is no longer the case. Partly it’s because I need less comfort reading these days and a large slice of my rereading was definitely comfort reading. On the other hand, I also do feel pressure (and desire) to constantly read new stuff, as there are so many good books out there. I suspect that I might do more rereading again in the coming years, I especially feel that I need to revisit some classics I read when extremely young. And I simply miss it, too.

Finally, regarding the practicalities: I read both on paper and electronically, although lately mostly on paper. This is not a value judgement (find my ode to Kindle here) and more than anything, is influenced by the fact I have to take pictures for the blog and Instagram. In some situations it’s rather ridiculous, as I need to bring about 15 books with me when I go on a holiday (I will probably read only 10, but I need options). In any case, I ALWAYS carry a book with me and will not buy handbags that don’t fit a book and my iPad, which houses my Kindle app. The only times I’m not taking a book with me when leaving the house is when I’m going to buy groceries and when I’m going drinking. And even in these cases, this is not an absolute rule.

Holy Byron, this turned out to be not just boring, but boring and VERY LONG. If you still have any questions, feel free to ask them.

*My reasoning is that as my schedule is totally fucked up already, these 15 minutes are not going to save me in the morning, but will give me pleasure in the moment.
**It can sometimes be a cool experience: reading, say, Hemingway after several Mojitos, but as a general strategy, it doesn’t work for me.
***Read my musings on reading goals here.
****Sometimes when I have the luxury of uninterrupted reading time, I still like to sit among my books like a mama spider and gorge on book after book, reading as much or little as I like. This is what abundance means to me.