Observations in Quarantine

Well, if there is anything to get you to read its being stuck in the house 24 hours a day for 6 days. I hope everyone is doing well right now and is safe! Since being home I’ve been able to successfully start (and finish) new TV shows, read a lot, and avoid unpacking everything I brought back from college.

            Being home, I tried to unpack all of my books, the problem with that being I had acquired quite a few books while in Boston and now there is no way they will all fit on my two-level bookshelf. Which means I’m going to have to make some tough decisions on what books to give away and which to keep. My parents only got me a small bookshelf as a way to police how many I buy. I have had to go through this process before, so I have down to a pretty exact science, I keep the books that I have already read, only if they have sentimental value or if I think they are good enough to lend out. The majority of my bookshelf though I try to keep to books I have not yet read. How do you guys try to organize your bookshelf? I have known people to do it alphabetically, by genre and even by color, which always looks really cool!

           

            While also being home I’ve been able to observe my family members reading habits. My sister, as I’ve mentioned in a previous blog post, only recently got into reading, but she reads books pretty regularly now. Usually the cycle will begin with her coming into my room around 1 am to look through my bookshelf. I guess that’s when her inspiration to read strikes. She usually takes that book and then returns at 1 am a week later looking for another. Something different though is that she switches between reading the paper version of the book and the audio version. Something I have never been able to do. My dad really likes to read but he only listens to audio books. I have bought him books before, but he never seems to end up reading them. He says he doesn’t have time, but his commute to work is about an hour, so he loves to listen to them in the car. My mom is not a huge reader, she is in a book club with her friends, but she won’t always finish the book. She always reads e-books on her kindle fire though, which isn’t great after reading the article. My brother is the strangest reader to me. He will read a huge book in a matter of hours. He reads super quickly and usually enjoys the books he reads. But he won’t read. He’ll read one series a year or sometimes only one book. I truly don’t understand it, because he likes to read but won’t read. I can’t recommend books to him, because he is my brother, and he won’t read something just because I recommend it. I found it interesting to see all of my family’s reading habits because I’m usually only around friends, people that are similar to me, and my reading habits.