How My Reading Has Changed Over Time

Hi friends! 👋🏻 Recently I’ve noticed that my reading habits have gone through a lot of changes. Naturally, there’s nothing wrong with reading habits changing but it is interesting for me to notice and compare them to how they used to be. Some of these changes are related to my job, some are down to changes in taste, and some are just because of me getting older.

To me, none of these changes are bad or negative, just something interesting that I’ve observed about myself.

i read a lot slower now

I work five days and a week so I don’t really have the luxury to be reading all the time. I’m not saying that I’ve become one of those ‘I don’t have time to read’ kinds of people because I do still find the time (mainly on commutes, lunch breaks, and before bed) but while I could get through 100 pages in a day before, the amount I read in a day tends to fluctuate depending on how tired I am or whether or not I’m in the mood. It doesn’t really bother me at all because reading a little is better than just not reading at all.

i barely buy books anymore

This point and my next are pretty much the same things, but the reason why I don’t buy a lot of books now is because of working in a library. Being surrounded by books all day means that I can just browse to my heart’s content, but it does also mean that I occasionally forget which books I already have at home. This did happen recently. I got a book from the shelves at work and started to read it on my way home and then once I got home, I found out that I already had my own copy. Oops.

i use the library a lot more

I work in a library, so why not use it? There still aren’t a lot of new releases that I have to have immediately and I do have my auto-buy authors, but a big perk of working here is being able to see what books have been ordered and being able to reserve them for myself or getting first picks from a new order. I also got a chance to order some stock to see how the process works, which was very exciting.

i don’t read as much YA

I still read YA books, but it’s not what I gravitate to anymore because I’m slowly growing out of it. Adult books are more appealing to me now so a YA book has to either be one that I’ve wanted to read for a long time, but one that really grabs me. Maybe it’s because I haven’t been a teenager for a while now, but I can’t find myself relating to the characters or stories that are told in YA books (especially contemporaries) and while I may not relate to a lot of characters in adult books either, the stories are a lot more mature.

That being said, when I want something quick to get through, I will still pick up a YA book.

snobbery gets on my nerves a lot more now

I’ve always hated snobs and elitists of any sort, but there’s been a rise in book snobs since BookTok became a thing. There’s a post that comes across my Tumblr dashboard every now and then that goes along the lines of ‘I hate you BookTok, I hate you this, I hate you that, I love snobbery and pretentiousness’ and I absolutely detest it. It costs absolutely nothing to let people read whatever the hell they want. Part of wanting literacy levels in general to increase is being absolutely fine that other people are going to read things that you don’t like.

A big part of my job is issuing and returning books from the people who come into our library on a regular basis, and a library is a judgement-free zone. If I was telling our regulars that they’re not ‘real readers’ for reading James Patterson or Danielle Steel, I would be complained about and called into the office to get my ear talked off. The people who I talk to every day wouldn’t like the books that I read so it’s not my place to talk shit about what they like to read.

talk to me!

Have you noticed any significant changes in your reading habits? Do they bother you or are you okay with them?