Top Ten Tuesday: Changes in My Reading Life

Top Ten Tuesday is a bookish meme created by The Broke and the Bookish in June 2010, and was later moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. Born out of love for lists and love for books, it desires to bring bookish friends together.

This week’s topic:

Changes in my reading life

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Before I took reading fiction seriously way back in 2007, I was averse to reading lengthy narratives. I prefer to glossy pages of magazines and encyclopedias to the dreary and seemingly taunting pages of the written prose. Everything changed when I entered my high school senior year. Over the years, my reading life has evolved and here are some of the most notable changes:

1. I have become a more critical reader, especially when I started doing book reviews.

I used to be very casual about reading back then but when I started reading books from must-read lists, I took reading more seriously. Doing book reviews have also influenced this shift into my becoming a more critical reader

2. I have become more enamored to classical fiction compared to contemporary fiction.

This pivot towards classic was largely influenced by, again, my completing books from must-read lists such as the 1,001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. I thought I would be a harrowing experience but it was, so far, the opposite of my expectation.

3. The pursuit for the best reads in the world have made me more exploratory and experimental in my reading. In the process, I found some really great reads and astounding authors!

I no longer put myself in a box just like what I did when I was younger. I try to immerse in different genres (well, except erotica and horror). I have also started expanding my reading reach as I read books by authors that were once unfamiliar to me. I never thought that I’d be reading works by authors of different nationalities such as Hungarian, Nigerian, South African, Swedish and a whole lot more. Every nook and cranny of the world has at least one book to offer!

4. I have no standard genre that I gravitate to. I jump from one genre to another and has become a very unpredictable reader.

When I was younger, I would stick only to genres I am comfortable with. This nearly made me give up reading because I started getting bored. However, when I started exploring other genres, I have become more enamored. To keep myself from getting bored, I would abruptly shift from one genre to another.

5. I have started to prefer hard bounds over paperbacks and soft bounds.

Paperbacks are more portable and takes lesser space. On the other hand, hard bounds are going to look great on my “prospective” library. That was a bit vain of me, but yes, I do prefer printed copies over eBooks and hard bounds over paperbacks. It has become such a preference that I would end up buying a hard bound copy of a book which I already possess a soft bound copy of.

6. I no longer mind buying new books.

When I was a student, I prefer buying from used books store. Now that I started working, I prefer to buy newer copies. I still buy from used books store, mostly online, especially if the book is something that is quite difficult to avail of.

7. I buy books even though I barely have any inkling on what it is about.

If I happen to like the book cover, I will buy it, just like in the case of Benjamin Alire Saenz’ Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. Fortunately, I ended up liking the book.

8. I started liking historical and magical realism books.

Although I don’t gravitate to any particular genre, historical fiction and magical realism books capture my attention more than any of the other genres. In the case of magical realism, I wasn’t too keen at first but as I read more, I started becoming more and more intrigued.

9. I prefer standalone books over series.

The younger me might have disagreed. This is perhaps due to the fact that most series belong to the young adult fiction genre, one that I am not really keen on.

10. I deliberately slowed down my reading in order to fully appreciate and understand the book that I am reading.

I used to set very lofty numbers for myself. Unfortunately, I only ended up more exasperated as I speed up my reading. In the end, I was unable to fully appreciate the book that I was reading. Over the past few years, I’ve decided to simply sit down and relax. It is not about the numbers, after all, but the quality that matters.

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A lot has indeed changed over the years. Now that I think of it, I’ve been reading for over a decade already! Whoa. I never thought I’d still have the persistence to immerse in the world of the creative and the verbose.

Despite these changes, there are still things that have remained unchanged. I still keep a tab of all the books that I read, for one. Moreover, I have no permanent bookmark! Haha. I guess for a person like me, anything within reach will suffice. My distaste for horror and erotica remains unchanged. And I still have more unread books than ever! Man, did I enjoy doing this post.

How about you fellow readers, what has changed over the years? Do share it in the comment box or you can do your own version of this post.

Happy reading!