50 Bookish Facts About Me

I’ve seen this tag a lot on booktube and it seems like a fun way of showing who you are as a reader, so I thought I’d give it a go.

This is quite a long list, so if you’re just after the highlights I’d recommend 4, 6, 12, 14, 26, 28, 36 and 43.

1. My go-to genre is fantasy. It’s just my absolute favourite.
2. One of my all time favourite books is The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.
3. Another is Graceling by Kristin Cashore.
4. I just finished A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab the other day and it just blew me away. Might have a new favourite on my hands.
5. I now want to read the entirely of V. E Schwab’s written works.
6. I’m going to YALC at the end of this month and I cannot wait.
7. I love books about magic. Give me stories about powers and spells and abilities any day of the week.
8. I’m a member of three separate libraries (not including university libraries).
9. I’m maxed out on my library book allowance (you can have 15 out. I have 15 out.)
10. I much prefer paperbacks over hardbacks.
11. Although recently I’ve been becoming a touch more fond of hardbacks.
12. I was in Oxford last weekend visiting friends and I bought two books for £2.50 each. The joy was real.
13. I also saw Shakespeare’s first folio in one of the Oxford University libraries.
14. One of my fondest childhood memories of reading is my Dad and I reading the first two Harry Potter books to each other. Sometimes he would read chapters to me before bed, other time I would chapters to him.
15. My favourite places to read are in the park (when it’s not raining), on my bed, and in cafes.
16. I also love reading on trains. Unless there’s a screaming baby. I’ve got no time for screaming babies when I’m trying to read.
17. I’ve become one of those people who reads while they walk.
18. I’m sorry.
19. But not that sorry. It’s a good way to pass the time when I don’t have music to listen to.
20. The smell of books.
21. That’s all I need to say. You know what I’m talking about, all you series book-sniffers.
22. My sister bought me Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare for my birthday when it was on offer on Amazon for £1. She has prime too so it was literally a pound.
23. I love reading manga and I went through a phrase when I was about 14/15 years old, where I stopped buying fiction, and just bought manga all the time.
24. As a result, my manga collection is huge. I’d estimate I have between 120-160 books.
25. I’m also really into graphic novels, though I have fewer of those.
26. I’m a huge fan of Goodreads and update my book progress on there all the time. (If you want to go follow me (and I would love it if you did) here’s a link).
27. I’ve set myself a goal of reading 40 books this year and I’m actually 6 books ahead of schedule at the moment.
28. My boyfriend bought me this  Alice in Wonderland book pillow for my birthday and it’s so squishy. It’s great.
29. I tend to start a new book immediately after finishing the previous one, because I find it surprisingly easy to dwell on and mull over the old book while getting into the new one.
30. My auntie and uncle are both English teachers so they will quite often give me books that they’ve read but no longer have space for. Success.
31. I would love to go on a bookshop tour of some of the world’s most amazing bookshops.
32. Maybe I should make a bookshop bucket list.
33. I love it when authors write under pseudonyms.
34. I need to read more books that have been translated from foreign languages.
35. Book mail is the best kind of mail.
36. If a book had a particularly exciting/dramatic/unexpected twist, I’ll often shout or exclaim something out loud, and my housemate has to constantly ask my if I’m OK.
37. I always read while drying my hair.
38. I take a book with me everywhere I go.
39. I either have a pile of 77 bookmarks, or no bookmarks at all and I’m using train tickets to mark my pages.
40. I need some of those small sticky notes to mark pages with poignant quotes.
41. I have a physical reaction when someone makes notes in a book in pen. It’s just not OK.
42. I studied English Language and Literature for my BA degree and it definitely opened me up to books I never would have found/read otherwise.
43. When Harry killed Voldemort in the Deathly Hallows I screamed and ran round my dining room table four times.
44. My favourite bookshop to go to is Barter Books. It’s a huge, old converted station house and an absolute haven (search for photos of it and you’ll see what I mean).
45. I’m very into booktube. I love watching people talk passionately about their favourite reads, and it constantly inspires me to try new books.
46. I once dropped a Ladybird classic book in the bath (when I was about 5) and the trauma has never left me.
47. I will never get over the fact that books can make us feel in such exquisite depth.
48. I think books have immense power.
49. They have the power to change and inspire us in at the very core of who we are. They can help us to look at the world completely differently.
50. That’s fundamentally why, at some point soon, I want to write my own book – to inspire.

Phew! Well done for making it this far if you read them all. Now you know a little (a lot actually) more about my reading habits and my relationship with books.