I totally drew a blank on this one at first. I don’t really know what my bookish habits were, and everything Jo suggested to me was as rude as it was accurate (maybe I do spend too much money on books, but don’t call me out on it, geez). Steph created the Six For Sunday challenge, and this quarter’s prompts are here!

Trawling stores once my favourite reads are released

Every time I go into Waterstones, I go and look at their new releases hardbacks, new releases YA and new releases fantasy/sci-fi to see if any of the books I was lucky enough to get review copies of are in store yet. A lot of them I already have copies of, and I still feel compelled to go and stroke the pretty hardback covers when they’re in store. I also get excited to see if other people are loving the same books I did. This is definitely how I get suckered into buying pretty Waterstones exclusive editions.

Going into Waterstones way too often

Speaking of Waterstones, I go in there way too much. This is a terrible bookish habit. My workplace is next door to our Waterstones (and I mean literally next door, we share a wall) and so every time I leave on my lunch break I have to walk past the book store. Or, more likely, walk through the book store and out with several books. I’ve been trying to cool off my book hauls lately because I’ve been buying faster than I’ve been reading, and on a few occasions I’ve left work through the back door because at least that way doesn’t take me past Waterstones! My self-control cannot take the pressure of a book store.

Accidentally buying 20 books in a charity shop

As part of my attempt to spend less money on books, but also to rebuild my library after selling a lot of my books pre-university, I put together a list of all the books that I want physical copies of but that I don’t need urgently (I don’t need any books urgently, but my brain will never believe that). I saved that list on Google Sheets, and it’s my intention to pick those books up if and when I find them in a charity shop. We’ve got a few good secondhand bookshops in my town, and I can usually find one or two off my list for a good price. Sometimes, though, I find lots off my list, and I end up lugging home a huge bag. Recently, I popped into a charity shop for a snoop around and found nineteen of the books off my list. I bought all of them. Oops.

Starting books instead of finishing them

I am the worst for this, the absolute worst. As I write this, I have six books on my Goodreads ‘currently reading’ shelf, and absolutely no chill. One of them is Samantha Shannon’s The Bone Season, which is a book that I’m really really enjoying and yet somehow haven’t picked up in a month? I need to stop this, it might be my worst bookish habit ever. I flit from book to book for no real reason, which makes my TBR significantly more rogue and unmanageable and also makes reviews confusing as hell to write. Maybe that should be my 2020 focus, read ONE book at a time and not twenty.

Sharing my books like a little library

This one can be controversial among book lovers, I think. There are a few (maybe ten) of my books that I would never dream of letting people borrow. Hell, a couple of them I wouldn’t even want other people reading in the safety of my own flat if I thought they might get damaged. But the majority of my books? PLEASE, TAKE THEM. I love lending books to my friends and family, and extended friends, and extended family, and friend’s family, et cetera et cetera. Sure, I don’t always 100% of the time get them back at all, and I usually don’t get them back soon, but I’m surrounded by people who like to read but don’t have the time or the inclination to read as much as I do. Which means people ask me for recommendations – I. Love. It. I also sometimes read a book which I just need to talk about, and throwing it at my friends is the best way to make that happen. I think there’s two of my books out in the wild right now, and that’s fine. They’ll come home when it’s time for them to come home, and until then I hope everyone enjoys them as much as I did. Books are meant to be read, after all, and I do not have time to give them all constant attention.

I don’t mind dog-earing!

This one kind of follows on from the last one and is probably even more controversial. I use bookmarks, but mostly because I have a ridiculous bookmark collection after spending too much time and money on Etsy. When I read my hardback books, I leave the dust cover safely on top of my bookcase where it won’t get ripped or scrunched up when I throw books into my bag to take to work. But when I lend books to people, I don’t care if they come back with the spines cracked and the pages bent and flipping open whenever I put it down. As long as it comes back in a good enough state for the next person to read it, I’m happy. Because, as with my last point, I love it when people read my books. So if they come back to me messy because someone just couldn’t put it down while they were eating, then I’m calling it a success for my neverending mission to make the people I love read the books I love. If my books get too tattered, it must be time to buy myself the nice new re-released cover…

Besides all that, my copy of Half Blood Prince is literally held together with sellotape, blu tack and love, so I can’t throw stones.

See you next week for the next Six For Sunday!