It’s Tuesday once again – yeah, the weeks fly by – and that means time for another Top Ten Tuesday. This one however is a bit different and difficult, because this topic screams for a Let’s Talk Bookish discussion. But we don’t have that, so it will be a list instead. It’s an interesting topic to look further into though. This particular topic is How My Reading Habits Have Changed Over Time and was suggested by Lydia @ Lydia Schoch. If you like some challenging posts and books, you should definitely check out Lydia’s blog. My reading habits definitely changed overtime, but I’m not sure if I can make it to 10 ways.
Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
- My genre preferences changed – I remember that in my childhood, apart from the obvious children’s books, I wanted to get challenged more. So, I read books that were a bit above my age as well. I was a kid in the 90s and 00s, Young Adult wasn’t a real genre, definitely not as big as we know now. So, I read more general fiction and thrillers. Naturally, I got a genre bore-out for the thrillers, I already found the clue soon enough. Furthermore, thrillers tend to get a bit too formulaic over the years. Then, I was reading a lot of YA, but I find myself moving away from that age range either. Why? I’m in my 30s and I find it hard to relate to books in a school setting nowadays. Bummer, because YA still dares to address challenging themes.
- I listen to audiobooks more often – Look, I hated audiobooks when I was younger. I was dependent on the library for the blind and visually impaired, so apart from the fact that they were more a year or longer behind on the hypes and I could finally listen to the books when they weren’t popular anymore, the audiobooks were HO-RRI-BLE. Most of them. There were some good ones, but let’s face it, they aren’t narrated by professional narrators or actors. These libraries don’t have the funding for that, so they are dependent on volunteers. Again, there were pretty good ones, but I’ve returnt books often enough for the petty reason that I couldn’t stand the narration. This changed when I discovered both Storytel and Audible alike. I still have my narration preferences, but I find myself enjoying audiobooks more and more over the years.
- I don’t read braille books anymore – As a kid until well in my 20s, I preferred to read books in braille. But these are HUGE. Imagine Harry Potter or the later Twilight books in braille, enormous. Huge piles. They always came in the mail, so it sometimes occurred that we had trouble entering our home because of my books LOL. Now, it’s impossible to get braille books because post boxes in apartment buildings are quite small. Fortunately, there are e-books and screen readers, so I can read the books when they have their momentum and not years later.
- I needed to divide my reading time – Life happens, so instead of reading a lot after school or university, I have to read after work. I therefore read on the commute, but that same commute has been shorter than it was until a few months ago. So, it could happen that I don’t read much for days. Chores don’t do themselves unfortunately.
- I obsess less over reading challenges – Okay, in my early book blogging days, I was OBSESSED with reading challenges and extremely determined to hit my reading goal. This kind of took away the joy of reading for me and that’s definitely not what we want right? So, this year I lowered my challenge and just set a reading goal for the monthly stats and yearly overview. And guess what? I already surpassed my reading goal by 100%.
- I’m not afraid to DNF – I’m not afraid to DNF books I don’t like, I never did this until a few years ago. Funny, one of my reading goals for either 2023 or 2024 was to DNF less. Or this means that I choose my reading material more carefully now.
- I read multiple books at once – This is something that started when I was still obsessing over reading goals, starting multiple books at once. I still do this, but I notice I did less so in the past few months. At the moment, I have two books I’m currently reading, but that hasn’t been the case for a while. However, I still enjoy reading multiple books at once.
- Rereading books – Unthinkable! In the past at least, now I’m rereading books if I want to. I don’t always track those rereads because they ill count towards my reading goal and that’s something I actually do not want to happen. I often reread books in another language. In English first and Dutch later, or vise versa. And only if it wouldn’t cost me extra money.
- Tracking my reading – This is something I never did before 2015. That was the year I signed up to Goodreads, only to forget about it soon after. I started to use it more actively in 2016, and even more so when I started book blogging in 2017.
- Not peeking at the final chapter – Okay okay, confession time. Back in the day, until quite recently though, I was way too curious for the ending of a book. So, when I was reading said book, I… skipped ahead and read the final chapter because my curiosity got the better of me. I still do sometimes when I’m not sure whether I should DNF a book or not, but I find myself doing this stupid habit of mine less and less. I will always stay curious though.
Oh wow, I indeed made it to 10! Have your reading habits changed overtime and how?
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