The passion for learning and reading is a luxury not everyone can afford. Once you fall in love with books, there is no turning back. The one interesting aspect about reading is that not only does it provide an enriching experience but helps you discover the types of bibliophiles that exist in the world. Every book-lover regardless of their interest in books and stories differs in their style of reading. Some spend sleepless nights finishing the book that got them at first through its romantic plot twist or possibly a fangirl moment. Some turn into a full-blown academic and paint the book rainbow with all the tabs and highlighters and annotate the hell out of the book.
If you are a book lover, keep reading to see how your bibliophile fraternity reading behaviours are
Attention Fellas! It’s reading time again!
The Tsundoku Expert!!
These types of readers not only like to read their books but love to own any and every book available out there, but usually do not read them. Peculiar Bibliomaniac alert !! The Tsundoku experts have a habit of hoarding a pile of unread books. Remember the iconic scene from Beauty and the Beast? where the beast out of his newly acquired love for Bella, builts her a massive library with books that could take ages to count! These types of readers stack countless books in their rooms regardless of they read all of them or not.
The Juggling Squad
These are the Polygamist readers. A little shaky with their book loyalty, they do not believe in sticking to one story at a time. The nightstand for them is like a book-lovers version of the television guide. They have trouble maintaining track of the books they are reading at the current time because these types of book-lovers do not stick to one book. They Juggle from classics to romantic comedy and thriller from time to time. Multi-taskers by habit, reading different books at once and switching from one genre to another is their super-power.
Spare books for weekend readers
These readers are committed to working for weekdays and struggle taking out time to spend with their favourite characters. But, TGIF!! they make sure to binge read on weekends and detox with words. These type of readers exchange their Netflix and chill nights with books, baked cookies, and coffee.
The Book-Club Junkies
Some readers are quite choosy with their books and as well as making social interactions. They rely on book clubs to find like-minded people and get updated on new books and stories. But some bibliophiles thrive on book clubbing! Theme book-club sessions and everything around them excites these book-lovers. There is a high possibility for these types of readers to be a member of more than one group, they are always persuading their colleagues, family, friends and sometimes a stranger they come across while reading on a bench in a park to start a book club of their own!
The ‘All-Hail-Physical-books’ Readers
Many readers mention from time to time that more often than not they prefer paper-backs and hard-covers over audiobooks and e-books, But there exists those who are hell-bent on only reading printed books, disapproving to even consider any other form of reading material. These readers take pleasure in being called old-fashioned. In a way, these readers are staunch monogamists who despise changing their choice. Their love for books is unparalleled and undetered.
The house of literature residents
These book-lovers are literary snobs. They choose classic literature over any other genre any day! They befriend old vintage characters and classic award-winning authors for their love for ‘sophisticated’ reading preferences, they are pro in understanding and explaining literary writers that are beyond comprehension for a lot of new-age book-lovers.
The Facts over Stories Readers
These readers believe that real life is more interesting than fiction and reading books is a fulfilling mental exercise. They choose content that is enriching, be it any genre – history, biographies or even short essays.
Fiction Freaks
Okay! Your mom surely did warn you about drugs and strangers, but she did not warn you about falling for fictional characters and stories that transit you into a completely different dimension! The fiction readers are bottom-line obsessed with dreamy narratives and surreal plotlines and characters.
The reach-out-for-the-kleenex Readers
These types of readers are in for the feels. They get too immersed in the emotions of every narrative and plot-twists. Reading a book for them is more often than not a cue for scheduling a good cry session, meaning they get all emo when a character falls in love or gets heartbroken. Make sure to keep a track of what was the last book these readers finished. You would probably think through before spending the weekend night wiping their tears over their hurt on the demise of a fictional character.
The Skip-to-the-good-part
Some readers are more about the destination than the journey of reading. They do not waste another minute impulsively skipping to the end to save themself from the pain of going through the whole book. These types of readers are inspired by Harry from When Harry met Sally. The male protagonist Harry, in a scene, exclaims that he prefers reading the last page of the book first, so in case his life ends, He will at least know the climax of his book.
The annotation aspirant
You may be able to recall the time when your high-school teacher asked you to open As you like it and refer to the underlined and marked text for tests and answer writing. But an annotation aspirant does not do this for the scholarships, they do it for passion. They love the idea of marked tabs and margins on paper-backs. These types of readers consider note-taking in (fictional and non-fictional ) books a refreshing perspective for reflecting their thoughts processing information.
FYI, don’t waste your time teaching them the hows and whys of note-making. They probably are already an expert in it!
The On-Repeat-Mode Readers
These repeat readers will politely refuse your recommendation of a new book and go back to their beloved copy of Pride and Prejudice for the 1000th time and let go of your suggestion forever. Some are stuck to their comfort zone of reading the same book and some just find it difficult to choose some other books. They are the polar opposite of the juggler: Once they pair up with a story or a writer, they are not letting go of it so soon.
The Audio-Booker
Some readers are more concerned with the stories regardless of how they grasp them. These readers believe in reading while multi-tasking. Therefore, they turn to audiobooks for reading their favourite books while they are doing their dishes or even working out.
The unintentional Spoilers
These readers give away the spoilers to their fellow readers without the intention of doing so. Remember the time you mistakenly gave away the ending of Harry Potter to their book-club pal out of excitement, compelling them to skip the book completely. The damage can not be undone, my friend!
The Bookstagrammer
These readers are all about the aesthetic. They like to share their book reviews and real-time progress on their current reads. These readers are spending all their time taking an obsessive amount of photos of their books and posting them with all the relevant hashtags to attract like-minded readers.
Reading is a very personal experience. You may or may not spot yourself on this list. That does not matter; as far as you do not give up on reading. Although, do let us know in the comment section, what category of reader would you enlist yourself in.
Happy Reading !!
By Manjari Gupta
