Exploring Bookish Toxic Habits: An Honest Take on Reader Traits

Join Charity, a dedicated reader and host of the Booktrovert Reader Podcast, as she takes a candid and entertaining dive into the fascinating world of bookish habits. In this episode, Charity navigates the terrain of bookish toxic traits often found in book communities, sharing relatable experiences and thoughts that many avid readers can identify with.

From book-buying addiction to the unread TBR pile dilemma, and even judging books by their covers, Charity humorously dissects these habits while reflecting on her personal encounters and musings within the bookish realm.

As she unearths various reader traits like dog-earing pages, breaking spines, or the curiosity of reading the last page first, Charity doesn't hold back on sharing her opinions and humorous anecdotes. She also addresses the emotional struggles of parting with beloved books, the skepticism towards movie adaptations, and the solace found in the world of literature amidst real-world events.

Join Charity on this insightful yet light-hearted exploration of these bookish traits. Embrace the quirks and complexities of being a reader, and share your own experiences in the wonderful world of books.

Tune in to this episode for a fun-filled and relatable discussion that celebrates the unique habits and idiosyncrasies of book lovers everywhere. Happy reading and enjoy this playful journey into the heart of bookish traits!

Transcript

Exploring Bookish Toxic Habits: An Honest Take on Reader Traits

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 1s Hello readers, this is Charity host, Booktrovert Reader Podcast. I am coming with you. Something that I always observe on the Bookstagram Booktok community that is bookish toxic traits. And I recently seen a booktubers do this as well and always find it very fun and enjoyable to find something to relate to on a daily basis. Because I've been reading for quite a while, and I didn't realize that there are so many things that I'm going to talk to you about. I do on a regular basis. So I want to go over these points with you and see if any of these you can relate to as well. So the first one is book buying addiction. Your bookshelf resembles a mini library, and yet you can't resist buying more books. You might not have them all, but they look beautiful on your shelves. Now, I do see this with quite a number of people, and this is what I don't understand is when people buy multiple editions of the same book, so they have like eight copies of the same book. And I get that you love that book a lot. But I guess in my opinion, I'm like, why do you need that many copies of it? You know, especially the luminary fairy loop comes out with like the same books with like the spray painted edges and the papers and Waterstones and all that, and everyone keeps buying all the different ones. And don't get me wrong, they're beautiful. I would love to have some of those as well, but I guess buying, you know, really expensive copies of the same book is kind of to me, I don't understand personally. Lately for me, I, I have been holding off on buying books recently unless I can buy it used for like 4 or $5. I don't know, I just feel like I have so many books to read that I just been holding off on buying books, and maybe I did. I did pre-order recently, pre-order some books only because it was cheaper than Amazon, so maybe that's just more of my being cheap than anything, but I very find it interesting how often people buy books repeatedly. I don't think it's my problem. Maybe when I first was able to buy books, I was. I went crazy and I bought like over 400 books in like a period of like 3 or 4 months, but didn't read any of them. So that's my shameful plug right there. Yeah, the book Buying addiction. I think it can be relatable to a lot of people. I'm only met a few handful of people that don't have that problem, and I wish them all the best. Point two the unread TBR pile. You have a towering to be read pile, but instead of tackling it, you add more books to it. Never ending cycle. Yes, I have that problem already. Like I said before, I bought a lot of books when I was able to afford buying them, there were all used. Use copies. I went nuts. Now, years down the road, I still have all those books that are unread and I. And with me being more involved with the book community, Bookstagram, Booktok and all those places, I found that I am struggling to get to that pile. I am always reading new books, and especially since I have a podcast, I have been reading whatever's new that's coming out. So tackling all the old books is kind of getting a little tough. So there is no solution to that problem, I feel, other than not buying books. But that's that's impossible for readers judging books by its covers. You judge a book by their covers, and if a cover isn't appealing, you're less likely to give the book a chance. It's hard to resist a beautifully designed cover, even if the saying advises against it. I mean, I always heard it, and I'm wondering if y'all ever heard it. Never judge a book by its cover, and I totally agree with that. But at the same time, I think we all do that regardless. I have to admit, since there's so many books being published every day coming out at me on, on, you know, all the social media and everything. Yes. The first thing that pops out to me first is the book cover. And if the book cover doesn't immediately catch my eye, then I will just continue on scrolling because there are just so much coming at me and I'm like, okay, you know, it's like a one stop shop, you know, can this thing, like, stop my attention? And then I'll read the synopsis at that point, if the book cover grabs my attention, dog earing pages, you can't stand bookmarks, so you resort to dog earing pages to mark your place. Your books are full of folded corners, much to the dismay of your more cautious, bookish friends. Now, I personally do not do that. I cannot stand dog earing my books. I detest it with every venomous of my soul, and I do not feel like people should do that. Now. If it's your own book, okay, I don't care too much, honestly, because I'm like, that's your book. You do what you want. If you want to trash it, throw it in the tub, throw it in the toilet, whatever you want to do, and then you want to read it after. It's all crinkly and ugly looking. Fine. That's your book. That's your choice. But if you borrow my book or you borrow a book from the library, I personally feel you shouldn't dog your A book because it's not your book. It's not mean. A one time got a book from the library and they dog eared almost every third page, and they didn't underdog ear it. So that was annoying to me. And I don't know. I know people can do it and I don't judge you for it, but I just don't personally think that if it's your not your book, you shouldn't do it. It's my personal opinion. Okay, so the next one is Breaking Spine. So you love a book so much that you have to crack the spine to read it comfortably. Your bookshelf is a mix of pristine books and well loved spine broken ones. Okay, so I am one of those people that doesn't mind a broken spine as long as I'm not the one who did it, I don't. I don't feel like condoning such violence to a book myself and I just can't do it. I think I did that to my copy of a Court of Mist and Fury, and sometimes I can't look at it because it has that single line down the spine that I'm just like, oh my gosh, that's so annoying. But I don't mind getting a book like that if I got it a used copy from Thrift Books or something like that. I don't mind as long as I'm not the one who did it. Let me know if you kind of agree with that. Oh, and the next one is reading the last page first. And patience gets the best of you. And you often find yourself reading the last page of a book before you even start. It's a way to quell your curiosity, even if it means spoilers. Don't know? I don't do that for sure. I like being surprised. I like not knowing what's happening until the very end, but I mean, I can read enough books then. I'm kind of curious if if you get enough information about what happens at the end of the last page anymore, you know that you're usually like wrapping up the book at that point. So I'm kind of curious, like, what do you normally get out of it? I mean, other than Fourth Wing, I think maybe fourth wing, if you read the last page of Fourth Wing, you would it would probably spoil the whole freaking book. I mean, I personally don't think you should do it, but I know that sometimes people just want to know. I mean, if it was a mystery, maybe I'll do it, but I don't. I like, like not knowing what's happening at the end. All right. So the next one is sniffing books. You love the smell of books so much that you often find yourself inhaling deeply. When you open a new book. You might even have a favorite smelling book. Okay, so yeah, I, I do that quite a bit. I think my favorite thing in the world is coming into a room full of books, like my room here has room full of books, and it has that nice papery smell to it. I love going into bookstores because it's just like you can inhale deeply and go, 1s yeah, you're in the right place. I don't normally just take books and sniff it. I don't do that. I mean, I think there's a limit to everything, but I don't do that. I don't sniff my books. But I definitely love going into a bookstore. My my room here and smelling a book, you know, at least the room full of books, you know, like, I don't know, sometimes I think they should have like a what you might call it, like it's a car sniffer thing, you know? 1s You know, instead of a tree, you just have a book that smells like books. I fully condone that. So the next point is distrusting movie adaptions. You're skeptical about the movie adaptations of your favorite books. You're convinced that no film could ever capture the magic while you felt while reading. Now I am 100% on board with that train for sure, because they just never they never do it right. They always take out things. They always add their interpretation of the situation. You know, a big one was Eragon. I think Christopher Pallone has not recovered from the the disaster of a movie of Eragon. And I think just ever since then, I just when I hear, oh, they're going to make a movie adapt Caught a Thorn in Roses or some other movie and I'm like, yeah, watch. They're going to butcher it. Because, you know, I think like even Vampire Vampire Academy, they remade that movie twice. And both times they sucked terribly. You think the first time would be a thing, and then they redid it this time and it just sucked so bad. I don't trust them. The majority of people who are going to see this movie are the people who read the movies or read the books, and I just don't like them. I will say that if I seen the movie first before I realized it was a book, I tend to really enjoy the movie more than the book case may being is actually Bridgerton series on Netflix. I really thought they did a very good job at creating a story with unique characters and making it come alive, so when I read the books, I'm like, man, I really, honestly think that they pulled it off better in the movies, in the books. And I did that with Anna Green Gables a little bit, and I don't know what else was better, but I really don't trust them, especially when I hear a lot of those things and a lot of people get excited about it. But I have extreme distrust about it. Next point is bookshelf reorganization obsession. Your bookshelves are constantly rearranged based on color, author, or some other arbitrary criteria. It's like a game of Tetris, but with books. Okay, so I don't reorganize my books very often just because I have a TBR bookshelf and I have a read shelf. And oddly enough, on my TBR shelf, I just have it organized by series. So I try doing the whole organize by author thing and everything, but I realized that I was constantly adding books and it was just creating such a hassle for me. So I'd just like to keep my series together so if I ever look for it. You know, book two of the series. I know they're there next to each other. And then on my read shelf, I have it organized by color just because I'm like, well, I've read it. I don't need to refer back to it anytime soon. So it's going to go by color. And to me that makes me happy. Whether I reorganize a lot, that doesn't happen. I was tempted a few times, but I just it's a lot of books and I don't do it very often. Book hoarding. Letting go of books is an emotional struggle. You can't bear to part with them even if you know you won't read them again. Your personal library continues to grow, sometimes beyond reason. Now, I do have a problem with that. 3s Even though there are some books on my shelf, then I know for sure I'm not going to reread again. I enjoyed it the first time, but I'm just like, yeah, but I'm not going to pick that up and read it again. It was good, but not again. You know, in oddly enough, and I've heard someone else say this too, is that they're buying books for their future children. And I'm like, I, I don't have any kids. And I did think about that, like, oh, what if my kids would want this book? And I have no future plans for kids at the moment? So I'm like, why am I holding on to these books? And if my kids are going to want to read as well? So I've been debating on just going ahead and selling those books, but it's so hard. I don't know why it's so hard to let it go. I think part of it for me is the the money that you spend on these books sometimes is, you know, you're spending 15, $20 on some of these books, and if you resell it, you're only going to get maybe 5 or $8 back from that investment. You know, because I am very money geared when it comes to my books and how much I'm spending, it's really hard for me to let go because I'm like, oh, what if I have to spend this money again and get those books? And, you know, and I'm just like, I'm like holding on to things that are not necessary. So I'm thinking about going through my books once a year to just get rid of some books, get it out of, you know, the house and everything and just give it away. I've been thinking about there is a library that does a huge book sale, and I'm thinking about just giving some of those books to that book sale so people can get it a lot cheaper than what I would have paid. That's a hard one. I definitely agree with that. Okay, so another one is collecting without reading and accumulating books without actually reading them. I mean, you know, there's a lot of books subscriptions out there right now that shows a lot of pretty books. And I think that goes kind of along with the book buying addiction. But you never going to read the book. I personally don't believe in that just because of the fact that I feel like if you're going to buy the book and spend your money on it, you should actually try to read the book. But at the same time, I can understand that, that you're not interested in the book, you're just not going to read it, to be honest. And I noticed a lot of people unintentionally just not pick up a book. I know, they just, you know, life gets comes by or there's just a new book that comes around your way that you just enjoy more. I get it, but the fact that there's just so many books coming out and so many different editions and everything, and then you just don't touch it. It just looks like pretty shelf ornaments, I mean. 1s Oh, I'm not going to tell you that. You don't need to buy it. It's pretty. I kind of envy your book collection, but it's like part of me is like, please read the book. Another one is ignoring real world events. So basically, you kind of just go in your own setting and you just kind of ignore it. And I mean, let's be real, there's a lot of things going on in this world, and then sometimes it's just easier just to dive into the fantasy world and just forget all that drama, all the things that are going on. And I'm not saying don't be informed about what's going on, but it's just so much easier just to ignore it and just read into something that's a little more happier or, you know, at least a guaranteed happy ending. I know, like there's political drama books out there too, as well. I'd sometimes it's just easier just to ignore everything I've been known to like. Instead of dealing with the family drama I've been known to like sometimes just read a book just to get some peace. And then I can go back in that world because I am an introvert. It takes a lot of energy for me to socialize, and reading a book helps me regenerate a little bit. So all right, so those are some of the book bookish toxic traits. And I am very curious if any of these you can relate to. And I hope you just embrace yourself for who you are, because there's nothing wrong with any of these traits. It's just something to laugh at and just realize that, hey, this is what we readers do and it's a happy time. So enjoy what you're reading and catch you later, readers.