I love reading but I'm not a "bookworm". I read mostly novels. All the scientific content I read is online, just few articles, and I fail to finish them. All the time. I have my own bookcase but it's not filled with books the way ideal bookcases look. I haven't even read every single book I own. I'm a terrible reader. Also, due to this occasional awful habit of mine. The habit of starting a book A, disliking it, leaving it, beginning A again, disliking, quitting for months, starting a new book, another and then finally reading A. And what's really mysterious is how do I finally get to finish the whole thing WHILE enjoying it? Some of these books end up ranking on top of my favourites. Magic!
I take novels too seriously. My mood changes with the actions, even my facial expressions do: surprised, sad or disgusted. It's fine, unless I'm reading in public in front of nosy strangers! The characters' tension becomes mine, their struggle, their experience... I relate to their pain even if I haven't lived such situation, yet. I take novels too seriously, I spend time thinking about the characters and daydreaming. I learn from them more than I should, since the events are unrealistic: too perfect or too depressing. Always the extremes. Murders. Eternal love. Adventures. Betrayal. All of these have nothing to do with my life, but I still learn from the characters and invent my own lessons. I bet the authors would be really astonished if they read my review on their books, like "But I didn't intend this!" and "Where the hell did she get this from?". Imagination!
It's a universal fact that books are better than movies. Deeper, filled with emotions and more fun. This is due to the time limit in the movies and changing the character's appearance, settings and dialogue. My reaction to the movies based on books is always extreme. It's like I was the author and the recreation offended me!
On the bright side, I do read now. When I was younger, I had a phase where I hated reading. I don't remember the details, but reading was torture to me. I'm not sure if a good book changed my view on reading or just growing up did it, but I'm slightly proud that I read. Currently, I read while I'm in the métro only, although I wasn't feeling it, and most importantly feared I'd get too engaged I'd miss my stop. It worked well and I've finished a novel faster than expected with zero missed stops!
What's even better than being too engaged and influenced by a novel, is discussing it. Or debating. I don't often find friends who have read the same books as me and when I do it's not easy to start such a conversation some times. It gets awkward, if you know what I mean. And not everyone is excited about it too, unfortunately. I had the idea of starting a book club but got busy and forgot all about it. Online book clubs didn't appeal to me.
