The Reading Life

If you’re a bibliophile, a bookworm, a book lover, a book aficionado, a person who likes to stare at ink stains on slices of dead trees for hours and hallucinate, whatever you like to call yourself… you know all about the reading life, right?

Right!?

Well, if you don’t, you’re about to!

The reading life is the life bibliophiles lead on instinct, without even thinking about it. It’s a part of them – it’s who they are. Books are as necessary as breathing, or as crucial as sleep. Sometimes even more so.

For those not in the know or who might be on the fence, there are a number of ways of knowing that you’re on the lifetime path of the reader. Read on to find our comprehensive list.

The Reading Life: Exploring the world, page by page

Have you ever had someone ask you why you read fiction when you can actually explore the world and experience things in person? It’s a special kind of ignorance, isn’t it, when non-readers don’t realise that reading IS a form of exploration, a way of discovering the world through different eyes. It’s this reason and more that makes those of us who call ourselves bibliophiles truly love books – here are a few ways to know that you’re on the path to life-long adoration.

• Do you always make sure that you have something that you can use as a bookmark – a receipt, a bus ticket, a business card, your library card, ANYTHING? Because people who dog-ear the corners of a book are sociopaths who must be stopped at all costs. You’re living the reading life.

• Do you have a journal devoted solely to recording the books you’ve read in minute detail? Down to the nitty gritty important details, like how much you liked it, what genre it is, how many pages it had, all recording creatively, colourfully, and uniquely according to bullet journal rules or some other arbitrary construct? All part of the reading life.

• Do you always carry at least two books with you wherever you go, just in case you happen to finish the first book? That shiver of horror down your spine that you feel at the very thought of being stuck somewhere, like in the waiting room at the doctor’s surgery, or on your morning train commute to work, without something to read… that’s the reading life.

• Do you find yourself in a bookshop on payday, spending more of your salary on your TBR than you do on groceries or clothes? That’s the reading life.

• Do you find yourself thinking about the characters in your favourite books long after you’ve finished reading them as if they’re old friends? You guessed it – the reading life.

• Do you find yourself thinking ‘just one more chapter’, and then finding the sun is shining on your face and your alarm clock is reading 6 am? If you’ve lost hours of sleep time and have absolutely no regrets, you’re well into the reading life.

• Is Goodreads the first website you visit when you hop on your computer or your phone – even before your emails or Facebook? Yep, you’ve got a bad case of the reading life.

• Do you have a physical TBR pile teetering precariously on the edge of your bedside table, desk, or other pieces of suitable furniture? Is it dangerously close to being the same height as you? Could it potentially injure you if it were to collapse randomly in the night? That’s the reading life, my friend.

• In your bedroom, have you long given up on the idea of bookshelves because the ones you have are stacked three rows deep? Are there piles of books on the floor, on every available surface, in boxes, wherever you can store them? When your own personal library outgrows your personal space, you’re winning at the reading life.

For Christmas, why not buy your favourite bibliophile something that will help them celebrate their reading life? Check out BookGeek’s amazing bookish range now!

Like this blog?  You might enjoy our blog on Jane Austen's Persuasion.