 Hello, hello everyone! My name is Laura and this is my channel, Laura's Little Library, and welcome to today's video where I will be doing the Reading Habits Tag. I decided to do this video because I've been on booktube for quite a while, but I feel like I don't talk about my reading life very much, and I mean, obviously I do because it's a booktube channel, but I don't talk about how I read. I only talk about what I read, which reminds me, I think that I should probably give reading updates at the beginning of every video, not just like, necessarily a full update, not like a recent read, but just, I think I want to start off each video with just mentioning what I am currently reading. So right now, I have turned my attention to Chris of the Spectre Queen by Jenny Elder... no, Moke... by Jenny Elder Moke. And I am not super far into this, I started this a little bit back, but now I'm refocusing on this, and hopefully I will get further in. I've been very much into, like, Indiana Jones type movies. Like, I rewatched Jungle Cruise, and I watched Red Notice, and I want to watch The Mummy. Like, I'm just kind of in an archeological mood, so I thought that Chris of the Spectre Queen would very happily satisfy that in book form. So yeah, so today's video I'm doing the Reading Habits Tag. I thought it was a very fun tag to watch, and I love hearing about other people's reading habits, because initially I was like, oh, you know, we all just read. Isn't that the end of the story? But apparently not. So these are the habits I have while I'm reading. So the first question is, do you have a certain place where you read? And kind of. My answer is kind of. So I have a specific chair in our living room that I love to sit and read in. It's not specifically my reading chair, because it also tends to be our catch-all chair. So I read there whenever I can, but it's the closest chair to the door. So a lot of times people pile their stuff on it, myself included. So I can't always read in that chair. But whenever I do read, I try and clear it off and just sit there and read. Otherwise, I do also try to make it a habit to read at night before bed. So I also read a lot in my bed. Yeah, I tend to be a night reader. I wake up early in the morning for work. So it's always when I get home, I relax, and then before bed I read. So it's either going to be in that reading chair if I plan on reading for hours and hours, or it's going to be in the bed if it's just like half an hour before bed. Second question, bookmark or a random piece of paper? So this, it depends, because when I'm at home, I have bookmarks, and so I will use the bookmarks. Unless the situation calls for something else. Either I am not at home, or I'm too lazy and don't want to get up to get a bookmark, or there's something closer. Like if I get interrupted reading and I need to get up and just do something, then I'll look for whatever is around, whether it's a piece of paper, a receipt. I once use a gum wrapper, but don't worry, it was clean. I don't generally like using foodie things on it. But yeah, so if I have a bookmark available, I'll use it. But otherwise, like currently in my current read, it's not a bookmark. That's in there, even though my bookmarks are literally like right up there. It's actually this random piece of paper with some information on it that I didn't want to lose the information, so I put it in my book. And that's going to be my bookmark for this book. I don't generally, okay, that's another thing. If I'm using something other than a bookmark, I won't switch it to a bookmark. I'll keep it. So that piece of information paper is going to be there until I finish the book. I'm not going to switch it for a bookmark. And I do this with everything, so. I'm curious. I'm also very curious to know the answers for you guys for some of these questions. So if you like a question, either answer it in the comments down below or honestly make your own video and let me know because I would love to watch it. Because I don't know, am I the only one that doesn't? Number three, can you just stop reading or do you finish a certain chapter or a certain amount, etc., and so forth? So for me, I prefer to finish the chapter. But that's not a requirement. Like, if I am reading a book and I get distracted or I'm really tired or someone interrupts me, I need to finish the sentence, preferably the paragraph. Generally, I'll tell them to wait a minute. I'll finish the sentence, see how much more I have in the paragraph, and then I'll finish the paragraph, and then I can stop. And I don't have a problem with doing that, but it is kind of nicer to stop with the chapter just because that is a natural break. But like, again, I was reading Curse of the Spectre Queen and I was really tired and so I went to bed without finishing the chapter. But I prefer to finish the chapter, but that is not always going to happen. Question number four, do you eat or drink while reading? Generally, no. So I do not eat when I'm reading. I just, I don't. I am so afraid of spilling on my book or getting something on my fingers and getting down the pages, I can't do that. However, drinking when reading? Again, I generally don't drink while I'm reading, not because I'm against it or I believe I'll spill because if I'm going to drink while reading, it's going to be in a cup with a lid and straw. But even then, I don't really do it just because when I read, I get so immersed in my book and I don't ever want to be disturbed. So if I have a drink and I'm into my book, I'm going to forget about that drink until I have finished reading. Like even with the chapter breaks, I'm not going to, I'm just going to keep going. I'm not going to stop to take a sip of something. So then that either means my drink gets cold or it needs to be remixed and then that's just too high maintenance. So I don't generally eat or drink because I don't like pausing to eat or drink. So. I mean, I've been thinking about trying to just because so many other people are like, oh, you know, a hot cup of tea or hot chocolate and reading this book and I'm like, oh yeah, that sounds wonderful. I still don't think I could do that though. Number five, music or TV in the background? Again, generally no. If I do listen to music when I am reading, it is going to be the Spotify reading playlist because I can't do music that I'm familiar with or music that has words because then I'm going to pay too much attention to that. But even still, I generally don't listen to music and if the TV is on, it's going to be the fireplace. It's going to be a 10 hour YouTube video of just a crackling fireplace purely so that the TV is not a distraction. Because sometimes if I'm reading and I'm like, oh, this reminds me of something from call the midwife or whatever, I'll be like, oh, I want to watch that now and then I just get distracted. But if I have the TV on the fireplace video, I'll be okay and I won't be distracted. During spooky season, I did have a few haunted house ASMR type things and that was kind of fun. But for the rest of the year, I don't know if there's really anything that would keep my attention on the book and not on it per se. However, all that being said, if you've been watching some of my recent blog videos, then you know that I've really gotten into listening to an audiobook while following along physically. So I've been doing a lot of that lately for every book that I have an audiobook for. If I own it, I've been trying to get the audiobook and reading them together at the same time and I've been loving that. It keeps me completely immersed in the book and it helps me with some of my bad reading habits which I'll talk about later. And it's definitely one of those things where it's like, oh, if I need to get up to use the bathroom or I want to go do something quick a second before I forget, I can just close the book and keep the audiobook going and then when I come back, just refine my place. And so I've been doing that a lot lately and it's very enjoyable. Number six, one book at a time or several? Several. I don't like it, but I always do it. Even when I was younger, I was reading like five books at once. And then so I've been trying to do just one book at a time or what I would prefer is one physical book and one audiobook unless they're the same thing. But that never happens because every time I buy a book because I'm interested in it, I have to immediately start reading it. So I've got, I've started almost every book on the shelf, whether it's a page or a chapter or two chapters. I've started every book. But then I always end up like wanting to read this one and this one. I am such a mood reader. I can't even stick to a book while I'm in the middle of it no matter how much I love it. So I am always reading multiple books at once even if it's multiple physical books, multiple audiobooks. No, audiobooks I generally do one at a time. The only time I would do more than one audiobook at a time is if I am listening to the audiobook and reading the physical book. Then I have another audiobook that I'm just listening to. But even then I don't listen to more than two audiobooks at a time. But physically I will read as many books as I am interested in because mood reader, I will just read it all and never finish it and then I'll come back to it and I don't like that. I don't have a problem with it. Like I don't get characters mixed up. I don't get plots mixed up. That's not an issue. But I wish I could just sit down and start a book and finish a book so that my Goodreads doesn't have like this five currently reading or six currently reading, but... Yeah, that's just kind of who I am and that's just kind of how it happens. Number seven is reading at home or everywhere. And I say everywhere. I... When I was younger, I would always bring my book with me no matter where I went. Even if I did not plan on reading at all. I just always brought my book with me as a comfort. I needed to have a book somewhere around me. I would bring it to church. I would bring it to dance. Even though like I'm gonna be sitting there dancing for two hours. I'm not gonna be reading but I always had my book with me because you never know if you could catch a couple pages like in between things or on a break or if you end up waiting for something. If you go to a doctor's office or the dentist, always bring a book. So I will bring my book everywhere. But again, now that I've been getting into audiobooks a lot these past couple years, I don't necessarily bring a physical book with me because I have my audiobook and I can just pop in headphones and listen. But I'm also one of those people where I need to be doing something when I'm listening to the audiobook, whether it is cleaning, following along in the book, coloring, something. I need to be doing something so it's kind of hard sometimes to just rely on my audiobook. But I do. I bring my physical books everywhere and I will read them any chance I get. Even if it's just for a sentence or a paragraph, I will bring my book so I can read that sentence or paragraph. Number eight, reading out loud or silently in your head. I have to go silently in my head. I cannot read things out loud. I just can't. Everything is silent in my head. That's how I read faster. That's how I actually soak in the story. If I were to read something out loud, like, you know how in school, when you're younger, your teachers make you read things out loud? Yeah, whenever that happened, I never retained anything. Like, I would read a paragraph out loud to the class and the teacher would be like, okay, now can you summarize it? I'd be like, no, because I have no idea what I just read. I don't know why, but I'm so focused on reading it correctly, pronouncing the words, getting the intonations correctly and making sure that it flows how it's written that I don't actually ever pay attention to the substance of what I'm reading if I'm reading it out loud. So I have to read it in my head. Otherwise, I won't pick up anything. If I read an entire book out loud, I guarantee you I could probably only give you a character name and that would be it. I would have no idea what happened in the story, no description, nothing. So I have to read silently in my head. Number nine, do you read ahead or skip pages? I don't skip pages and I don't read ahead, but I do skim a lot or skip paragraphs. I'm one of those people where, to me, dialogue is much more interesting and I feel like dialogue a lot of times is where the story comes through. So if there's a chunky paragraph of just description, I'll either skim it or just skip it completely and I'll just keep going and I'll just really kind of go from dialogue to dialogue with little bits of paragraph. Like I'm not saying I'll always skip the paragraphs. Sometimes it depends on the size and sometimes it depends on the mood I'm in because that's not that it always happens. Like I still read descriptions, but especially if a book is intense, I will generally go mostly focusing on the dialogue and then if something happens where it's like they're in a completely different place, then I'll go back and read the description to see if that actually happened. But yeah, I don't skip whole pages or chapters or read ahead or anything crazy. The only time I read ahead is if I'm about to DNF the book and I need to know if the ending is worth it, but I've really only done that like once or twice. So yeah, I don't do anything that crazy, but I will skip paragraphs if I'm bored or tired or not and captured in the book. So number 10, break the spine or keep it like new. I keep it like new. I don't actually have that many soft covers or the ones that I do are kind of ones that I've got at a thrift store at Hand Me Downs. But recently I've just been purchasing mostly hardbacks because I prefer hardbacks in general. I think they're just nicer and they're a lot more fun and they look nice on the shelf and they're not as fragile. But for the soft covers that I do, I just don't break the spine. I just don't. I mean, if I got maybe a mass marketed soft cover, maybe I would, but I don't have any of those because I don't read any of the like mass market paperback editions of like murder mysteries or cozy mysteries or romance. Like that's just not what I read. So most of the books that I do read, I get in hard cover. But for the soft cover, I just don't read. I don't crack the spine. And lastly, number 11, do you write in your books? No. So I do not write my books. I do not dog ear. I do not do anything to mark up the book. I don't highlight. I don't even tab or like annotate. I do not annotate my books unless it's for school, unless it's a book that I am not interested in but am being forced to read because of a class, which as an English major is not a lot of books because most of the books we read I am interested in. So I won't tab them up. I won't annotate them. I won't write in them. I'll have a separate notebook where I write page this, this line, these are my thoughts. And then that way I can go back and kind of see a little bit easier where my thoughts are similar or completely different. And I know you can do that with a color tab for annotating, but no, I don't do that. I just, I don't like changing the physical appearance of a book. I think that books are meant to look this way and so they're going to look this way. I have nothing against anyone who does write in their book or annotate like you do you. That is perfectly fine. Fantastic for you. But if you touch my book and you annotate my book or you write in my book, I will hate you for the rest of our lives. Like I, I find if you do it to your own books, I don't care. They're your books. You paid for them. You acquired them. They're yours. Don't do it in mine. Thank you all so much for watching my reading habits tag video. Please, if you are interested in answering any of the questions, comment down below. I would love to know some of your reading habits. If you have the same as mine, if you have different, I would love to just talk with you guys and chat down below. Feel free to subscribe and click the bell so that you're notified. I am uploading on Sundays and Wednesdays probably. So yeah, I have up to two videos a week, which is very exciting for me and they are Sundays and Wednesdays. So hit the bell so that you know when I upload the video. Otherwise give this video a thumbs up if you liked it or if you have done the tag or will do the tag. Leave it down below. Also give it a thumbs up. I would love to watch them. But yeah, thank you all so much for watching again and I will see you in my next video. But until then, I wish you all happy reading.