Not to be confused with these habits:

I’m jumping on Kate’s bandwagon today. She recently posted this Reading Habits survey and you know I can’t resist a good survey.

1. Do you have a certain place at home for reading? 

Not really. The places I read definitely serve other purposes also. My three most frequent haunts include: (1) in bed before going to sleep (2) Sitting on the couch during the day while the kids do their thing or sometimes when I’m home by myself and the tv stopped being interesting – it happens – or (3) in the car while I’m waiting for the kids to get out of school because I’m perpetually 15 minutes early to things.

2. Do you use a bookmark or a random piece of paper? 

Both. I have a beautiful wooden bookmark that I love that keeps whatever book is on my nightstand company – but sometimes I’m reading more than one book and the other book needs a more creative solution. Tissues, old receipts, whatever is handy. I did buy these book darts for just such an occasion but they are mostly being used in my bullet journal or for marking pages I want to reference again in a book club pick.

3. Can you just stop reading or do you have to stop after a chapter or a certain amount of pages?

If possible, I stop at the end of a chapter – or at the very least the end of a section – some chapters are divided into multiple sections with a clear break. One of those will do. In a pinch I just try to get to the end of an idea or find a page where the paragraph begins on the top of the page.

4. Do you eat or drink while reading?

Sometimes – only if I’m not reading in bed though and I can’t guarantee that I’ll remember I’m eating or drinking something if the story is good, I’m likely to tune everything else out. Even chocolate.

5. Do you watch TV or listen to music while reading?

Sometimes if I’m having a hard time getting into a book, I’ll read during commercial breaks – but usually I like to have as few distractions as possible.

6. Do you read one book at a time or several at once?

For the longest time I only read one book at a time – usually if I was reading more than one, it meant I hadn’t actually picked my next book yet – eventually one would win and the other would get dropped until later. Lately I’ve been finding ways to maximize my reading though and a big help (I think) has been reading more than one book at a time. Especially if one of the books is nonfiction – I’ll usually read that during the day and read a lighter fiction book at night when I’m too tired for big words or complex thoughts.

7. Do you prefer to read at home or anywhere? 

I’m more likely to read more pages at home – if I’m out, I’m likely going to get distracted by friendly people or noise or life. But I do sometimes read while the kids are at karate practice if there aren’t any mom friends lingering – or at the school parking lot or at a coffee shop while waiting for a friend. But if I don’t think I’ll have more than ten minutes, I’ll probably play Angry Birds instead.

8. Do you read out loud or silently?

I only read out loud when I’m reading to the kids or sometimes when I’m reading nonfiction and having a hard time focusing. I used to do that in college to make textbooks more interesting. Sometimes I’d break out a funny accent – British accents make everything more interesting right? But usually I only do this for a couple of pages until I’m paying attention to the book again and then I go back to reading silently.

9. Do you read ahead or skip pages?

I try not to skip whole pages but I’ve been known to skip sentences or paragraphs when an author goes to technical or a battle scene drags on too long. Or if Nathaniel Hawthorne finds a brick wall to write about. As he does.

10. Do you break the spine or keep it like new? 

I don’t intentionally break the spine but I get annoyed when the binding is too tight and I feel like I can’t hold a book like a normal person because it’s all uptight and stuff.

11. Do you write in your books?

Not usually – no – I’ll try to find a sticky note if I have something I want to write down. Although sometimes when I start taking notes – I go a little bit overboard. I was definitely that kid in school who would highlight basically the whole damn book.

But I’m hesitant to actually write in a book because at some point there’s a good chance I’ll be trying to sell it at a used bookstore and I would hate to buy a used book that had been written in. That’s almost never fun.

What about you? Do your answers look similar to mine or are we reading opposites? Tell me about it in the comments below!