 Hey everyone, welcome back to my channel. I hope you're good. So I think in my, you're in a half on Booktube, I'm pretty sure I've only ever done one tag. So a lot of people have been asking me to do more tags and I just thought, hey, why not? So I thought we'd do the reading habits tag. This is a tag I've enjoyed watching myself a few times. Like even before I had Booktube, this would be the kind of thing I would watch. But I've never tried to about how I read. So yeah, I thought we would do that and just have like a chill chatty video. I actually haven't really looked at the questions beforehand or prepped for this. So let's just find out what they are. Do you have a certain place at home for reading? Here. I tend to read in bed, especially in, if you don't know, this is my uni flat in Leeds. This is where me and my boyfriend live together in Leeds. But oh my God, I've got lip gloss on today and it was a mistake because like, hair is getting stuck. Oh my God, that's, that's, that's a lot. But I also live at my home, back home, like my family home. And here, the couch, which you may see me film on occasionally, you won't see me sitting on that any other time because it's uncomfy. Like obviously, it's not a couch we've bought. It's just the like cheapest couch that came with the flat. And it's like, it's just not an enjoyable experience. I wouldn't choose that for myself. So I try sometimes because here's the thing, being in bed all the time, it does make you feel a bit like groggy, a bit like not at your best. Whereas if I'm sitting on the sofa, I'm in front of the window having a good time. But it's not comfortable. So like, why would I wear it? Why would I wear it? Why would I sit there? When I'm at home, like at my family home, much more comfortable sofa, so I will read on the sofa, but also in bed. But that's it. It's so for a bed, isn't it? I'd say like 80 90% of my reading occurs in bed. I don't have anything funny to say about that. I never found you funny. I never found you entertaining. I never found you smart. I just found you annoying. A bookmark or a random piece of paper. Okay. So here's the thing. Before I had booktube when I was a bit more of like a casual reader, you know what I mean? Like, you know, just dabbling. I would doggie my pages. Like I didn't have respect for my books. I didn't really have any like, beautiful books, like special editions, like mainly paperbacks, stuff like that. And yeah, I would just doggie the shit out. Like, do I mean, get up from the sofa, read a page, doggie again, you know, that was me. Could not be me now, though. I think I've appreciated, I've learned to appreciate bookmarks a lot more. Such a weird thing to say. In case you haven't noticed, I'm weird. I'm a weirdo. So I actually keep all my bookmarks in this pouch from a fairy loot box. My favorite one to use at the moment is when I got in a fairy loot box. This is what was in the Greek mythology box. I really like metal bookmarks because they're like solid. They do work better in hardback, so they're kind of like slip out of your paperbacks if you're not careful. I love these ones from my friend Sabine's shop. They're really cute. They're like people with flowers coming out of their heads. And then I have these animal ones. I'll put in a picture of an example from her Instagram. I believe it's like Catherine Banks. She sent them to me. And they're really beautiful. They've got like animals on them. And it would be like, this book is roaring mad with a tiger on them. But Tom has, my boyfriend has borrowed them at the moment for his dissertation reading. So I don't know where they are. And I don't want to mess up his place in all his books. But they're really nice as well. So I'm definitely more of a bookmark gal now that I was. I used to be like pretty chaotic with my reading. And I feel like booktubers like drilled me down. Booktubers just drilled my chaotic, well, I was going to say booktubers drilled my chaoticness out of me, but like I'm not sure if that's true. Maybe just in the bookmark examples. Can you just stop reading or do you have to stop after a chapter a certain amount of pages? Oh, I don't know. Yeah, I think I can just stop reading whenever to be honest. I think sometimes you have to like, no, actually, I don't give a shit. I don't give a shit. I'll stop reading whenever. Like sometimes if you're listening to an audiobook, I'll stop in the middle of a sentence. Like you'll pick it back up, you'll understand what's happening. If it's like a five star book, you won't catch me doing that. But like if I'm just listening to a random audiobook, I'm walking along, I get to my destination, I'm just pausing the audiobook and like going along with my day. I don't think that's weird. Like if I'm sitting in bed, chances are I'll at least finish the sentence, but sometimes you don't and you just like pick up where you left off and maybe read like the last couple sentences again. That's not weird in my opinion. That's perfectly normal. Do you eat or drink while reading? I mean, I drink because like you have to drink while doing anything. Here's the thing, I'm a terrible snacker. I don't speak about this. I don't tend to speak about like food or anything like that because I don't want to like upset anyone or like trick anyone. I feel like it's like a sensitive topic for many people. I don't know. It's just something that like I've, I don't really tend to speak about all that much in my videos, but I'm a terrible snacker. Like I will just snack and snack and snack and snack. I have to have boundaries in place otherwise I'll just eat all the time. Like I generally will. So I don't tend to eat while reading. Like if I'm gonna eat, I tend to like try and appreciate the food. I don't know. That's some bullshit. I've seen some people, you know, like Ruby Granger, the queen, she'll like eat her breakfast and and read her book or like she'll be brushing her teeth and reading her book. I'm like, girl, I don't have the focus for that. Do you know what I mean? Multitasking, music or TV while reading? No. Well, I listen to music. Yeah, but it can't be music with voices. Music. How do people do this? I don't understand that. That's generally foreign to me. Like I generally can't understand that. Like, how? How can you focus on the words? Like sometimes even if Tom is on the other end of the room and he's watching a video out loud, I struggle to read because like those words are getting in with these words and they're all jumbling up and I don't like that. So I don't, I just don't understand that. I listen to like ASMR rooms typically. So like ambience, the fire crackling, but not music with voices. I don't understand that. Before we actually get any further into the video, I want to take a moment, just a moment, to thank the sponsor for today's video, Skillshare. So I've mentioned Skillshare a couple times, but if you don't know, Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of inspiring classes for creative people. They have classes on illustration, creative writing, photography. They also have like more lifestyle kind of classes. I've been taking a couple of their classes to improve my editing because I'm making a documentary for my dissertation for university. I'm gonna have a look at some of their productivity courses as someone who is struggling with time management at the moment. So I'm gonna give the course productivity habits that stick using time theming, which basically aims to help you get the important things done rather than tick box exercises because I'm definitely guilty of that. I just like do the easiest things on my to-do list first. I think sometimes it can be easy to avoid doing the most important things or breaking those important things down into like more manageable tasks. It's something I definitely struggle with. Skillshare is also created specifically for learning. So there's no ads and once your free trial ends, it's super affordable at less than $10 per month. So amazingly, the first 1000 of you to use the link in my description will get a free trial. And I would definitely recommend it because I've loved using Skillshare. Okay, back to the questions. What's next? One book at a time or several at once? I feel like I've spoken about this quite a few times. So I typically typically will have one audio book, one physical book. Now sometimes it can be one book and the book can be both my physical and audio book because I don't tend to listen to like more than one audio book at a time. So more recently it has just been even one book because I've been listening to the audio book of a lot of the books I'm physically reading. I wouldn't say I ever read more than two like as a rule. I just find like that's all my brain can take. I don't understand these people. Again, I don't understand it. Like when you have five books that you're in the middle of all of them and like pick any of them up that this doesn't work for me. What everywhere? I would say I can read everywhere. Like I'm pretty good at reading in the car. People always say to me, Megan, how do you read in the car? Like people outside book, bookchains, like I think it's a fairly normal thing for us to be able to do but people in my normal life say how do you read in the car? And I think it's pretty easy. I love car rides. I think car like long car rides when I'm not you know having to drive because I don't like my parents drive. I find that they're really good for like inspiration and thinking through stuff and like taking some time out to read or something. So yeah, I would say I can read everywhere. I read like when I'm out walking. I can read at the like the beach, a park. You know, I think I can read anywhere. I think if you've got a good book, you can read anywhere. Oh, oh my god. How can I forget? Well, I know how it could be because I haven't done it in a year but I love reading coffee shops. Like I love when it's like rainy outside and you go and sit in like a costa. I think costa is the best for this in terms of like chains in the UK. Starbucks is a bit cold, you know, a bit great, a bit hard. Whereas costa has like comfy, comfy sofas and stuff. So yeah, going into there, getting a hot chocolate, sitting down and reading a book. I love that and I want to do it more. I have a vivid memory of when I was like 14 and I went into a costa and I read The Kite Runner, which I really want to reread because I loved it for like years before I had Booktube and before I fell in love with reading again. I would say The Kite Runner was my favorite book and I don't know how it would compare for me now, like having read so much because I would maybe read like 15, 20 books a year at that point, maybe more, but it definitely was nothing in comparison to how much I read now. So I wouldn't be intrigued just to read that again, but it was such a vivid memory. I think it was for a couple of hours I went and sat in there and I finished The Kite Runner and I just, it was just amazing. Like it's just a lovely experience, like sitting in the wall, reading a book, having all those conversations around you. So that's really one of my favorite places to read. Reading out loud or silently in your head? Wow, that's a great question. I can't say I ever read out loud. I don't think. I don't think. I don't think. No, I never read out loud. Do I? No. I'm pretty stoic when I'm reading, like I don't react. Oh, something that I've read ahead on the question and this isn't a question, but something I want to talk about and discuss is like TBRs versus mood reading, right? Because people say to me now with the way that I read and the way that, you know, I have like themed reading vlogs I have to read X and Y a book for, they say just read what you want. Just read what you want. That must be such a boring way to read. You know, you're not making it fun. The thing these people don't understand is I have never been a mood reader. Even when I didn't have Booktube, I only read like 15 books a year, I had those books set up in the order I was going to read them. And sure, sometimes you would like maybe swap one or two around, but for the most part, I knew the order I was going to read the next 10 books in. I just didn't know like how quick I had to read them. So that has never been me. I don't understand mood reading because it's too much pressure. Like I don't, I have never been able to do that. That's never been me. That's never been how I read. So when people like stop doing that, stop doing your theme reading vlogs, I'm like, it's the way I've always done it. Like I can't do anything else. Yeah, even as a kid, I'd have when I'd go to the library and get books out, I'd have the order I was going to read them in. It's the truth. Let me know if any of you are like that too, because having the option of any book is too much pressure. Whereas if I just know that's the book you're reading next, takes all the pressure out and I can just be excited for that book. But it's that strange. So let me know what you think. That was my own question. Breaking the rules. The rules don't apply. Anyway, do you read ahead or even skip pages? I definitely, if I'm really enjoying a book, I remember I did this a lot with The Night Circus and The Star of the Sea by Erin Morgensen. I'd like to find myself, like I'd just something, I'd be at the top of the page and I'd see something really interesting like down at the bottom and I'd just go there and I'd start reading. And then I'd be like, okay, oh shit, I have to go back and read the rest. So that's something I definitely do if I'm enjoying a book. I just skip, like I just, my eye just goes and starts reading. Do you know what I mean? And I don't get any choice on the matter. And then I have to go back and actually read it. Breaking the spine or keeping it like new. Okay, this is a fairly easy one. I don't go out of my way to break the spine. Like you're not going to hear me like but I also don't, I don't, I don't, I don't care if it breaks or like, I don't even know really how to do it or like what constitutes a true broken spine. Like is a bit of creasing a broken spine? No, broken spine is like when you go like, but like if I get creasing or if it breaks, I don't care that much. I prefer hardbacks, like though I really care about in terms of like keeping them pristine. And the last question is, do you write in your books? I'm not a big annotator and not out of like keeping it pristine. Just like, I just don't tab books. I don't highlight. I'm not like kind of gal. I'm not like aesthetic about my books. You know when people like highlight them really nicely and like tab them, that couldn't be me. I'm just here to like relax and not think and just like, you know, turn my brain off and read. So that is all of my reading habits. Let me know if any of that was surprising to you. I don't think it will have been, but again, this is kind of the stuff I've never spoken about. If you've gone until the end, fuck. Well, firstly, let me know some of your answers to these questions about your reading habits and comment, oh, comment the food or drink emoji that you're most likely to be eating or drinking whilst reading. Comment that. I feel like that's a good one. So any food or drink emoji that you are most likely to be eating or drinking whilst you're reading. And yeah, I hope you've enjoyed the studio and I will see you very soon in another one. Bye.