Things Book Nerds Do

     We book nerds are weird. We do things that 'normal people' just... don't. Things that are nonsense to- external people. Like, who would spend their afternoon reading and realise (and by this I actually mean remember... maybe) that they have math homework? Book nerds, of course. But, just so people know, we are not lonely, nor like to be isolated (that's topic for another post, come back later); we just want to read. And no, we're not pissed off, but if you don't let this reading thing continue, we will be.  So, here are the things we book nerds do, not all of them were written by me, just check them off at the link located at the end of this post. (Quotes are anonymous: I don't know them, for the author of the other post said they're anonymous, and that way they will stay).

Here they are:

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THINGS BOOK NERDS DO

• “I can’t remember if the book is in my car, if I donated it, or if I lent it out and never got it back” – as shared in an email to a friend. This happens just too much.

• Keeping an entire library’s worth of books in your car. Just in case. Or because they don’t fit in your house anymore. I have no car, but I do have one in my school locker. My locker is a library (kind of).

• You create a stack of books to read next and promptly pick up another book entirely to start. To-read lists just aren’t useful. They only serve to impress people.

• You hold off on re-reading the end of a beloved favorite (again) because you don’t want it to end (again).Aye, so true it hurts.

• Wait! Wash those hands before you pick up that book! And no! It’s NOT ‘just a book’! And I won’t calm down!

• You pet book covers before you read them. Coversss…

• Policing random people in bookstores because they’re breaking the damn spines. Like, it’s not even theirs (yet) and they’re already HARMING THEM?

• Constantly rearranging your bookshelves in different ways because you haven’t found the “perfect” system yet. By author? By genre then author? By color? By most loved? Weekly problems we all have.

• You keep a color-coded spreadsheet to track your reading because none of the zillions of existing book-tracking software options is detailed enough for you and you *need* to make graphs at the end of the year. Need. Plus, it does look pretty (and it’s more impressive to people than online ones).

• You ruin everyone’s movie watching experience by pointing out all the differences between the original book/source material and the film. (Husband won’t watch anything with Greek Mythology with me any longer.) I don’t have a husband, but, they are NOT described that way in the books. Okay, watch what you want. I will be reading if you need me.

• You have responded to your partner’s amorous advances with, “Just as soon as I finish this chapter.” Not amorous ones, but it sometimes happens with homework (and sleeping).

• You consider quietly reading in a coffee shop to be an excellent 1) idea for a date, 2) idea for a friend hangout, 3) idea for yourself any day of the week. Because why not.

• You collect hard copies of series in the format in which you got the first one. If you got the first one in hardback, the rest of them are acquired thusly as well (even if you know you’ve got no chance of reading it before it comes out in paperback) And it looks prettier. They’re all the same. Pretty, I’m telling you.

• You exchange books with your mom by mail and then you have long phone conversations trying to remember who’s got which book and which book you want back. (Actually, I don’t. Her literary tastes are not the same as mines. I won’t read Twilight. No, I won’t give arguments, I just won’t. OK. I don’t want to. And it actually is an argument to me)

• You make sure to only buy purses/bags that are big enough to store a paperback. You can’t go out for drinks without taking a book along too. They’re useless otherwise.
• When you were in fourth grade, you didn’t understand why your friends didn’t want to just come over and read quietly together. You missed all the fun. It’s even better than watching Netflix.
  
  
• You bring print books AND a stocked ereader on vacation. If you’re close to finishing your current book, you bring a back-up along, just in case you finish. It would be foolish not to. 
• Your pets have adjusted to your household, tabletop, and bedside piles of books and use them for their own climbing, sleeping, and/or attention-getting purposes. And they use them aaaall the time.
  
  
• When you have guests over, piles of books get covered with linens of some sort and become new furniture. (To me, they look better in the bookshelf, or the table, or the bed. And the desk, and the chair)
  
  
• When guests leave, you still use piles of books in various forms to perform furniture-related functions. Like rising the PC to watch Netflix. 
• You do not have a single room in your home lacking a book or fifteen of some kind. Kitchen reading. Bedroom reading. Office reading. Bathroom reading. Guest bathroom reading. Guest bedroom reading. Den reading. You’re covered in any and all situations. Only fifteen? Pathetic.

• Still celebrating the birthdays of the ladies of The Baby-Sitters Club all these years later. Because why wouldn’t you worship your idols on their special days? Woz that?

• Your brother lost some of your complete collection of Animorphs book, and, if you’re being honest, you’re probably never going to get over it. GET AWAY FROM HARRY POTTER. GET AWAY FROM THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Why? Because I found Tunnels on the sofa. Only /I/ can put my books there. They’re miiine.

• Darting your eyes from the math homework to your book and back. You can always do the homework at school.
  
  
• You have your reading playlist. No. It's not the same to the sleeping one. There are about 4 playlists. It depends on your mood which one you play. It depends on the book, too.
  
• You've tried to write a story. Over, and over. And you spend your time daydreaming of the times when you are famous and have money (to buy more books).
  
• You don't understand people who don't read. Like, how are they even real? GO AWAY.
  
• You have convinced your friends to read your books (they loved them, and you talk about them all the time)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Check the link here: http://bookriot.com/2015/05/06/shit-book-nerds/

Philip Pullman

     Sometimes we don't do what we must because what we mustn't seems more dangerous and we do not want to show we're scared, so we act reckless just because wrong things are dangerous. We are more worried about not showing our fears than acting wisely.
 ~Will Parry
  His Dark Materials pt. III

Heartbreaking Post

Sorry I'm not sorry.

How does reading a book may change your life?

     Your way of thinking, your imagination, even your way to see the world; to see the things change when you read a book. And when you read more than one, you find common things between those worlds, those characters, those events, because there are similar names. It is then when you say yourself: What if all of these places were the same one, but with another name? It is in that moment, and from that moment on, when you find it the most obvious thing of the world, even if it is perhaps unreasonable: maybe impossible. But, couldn´t it be part of the same story, with changing names across time? Words evolve, life evolves too; so, why not? Ah! How would you like then to be the author of those ideas, those stories, those books! And it is because of this that people who read have such a good memory. I think that it is feeling all of this that makes our memory grow, our memory improve.

     All of these feelings reduce into one: nostalgia. And it is complicated to feel this because each feeling, each emotion, has a particular characteristic. It is not the same to be happy because you are going to receive something than to be happy because you are going somewhere or to meet someone. You also imagine your life, your future in a different way. If for example, you read Harry Potter, you will imagine your house in a different way than how you would imagine it if you read Eragon, or both. This is felt a t the same time. Once you get used to it, it is the most beautiful thing, even though it is sad to feel it. Opposite to what others may say, reading has never satisffied my soul. You always want the story to continue. And when you find your favorite song to read, you can relate it to any story, to any event; may it be sad, happy, funny, boring... there is always something to calm you down, making you troubled, worried and pulling you more towards, calling you louder and louder every time.

     If you read while listening to music that you like, you enjoy the story in a very different way than to if you read it is silence or with noisy background. If people disturb you a lot and you listen to music while reading, you learn to read in a special way; ignoring everything around you, concentrating just in the story but without stopping to listen that music. Later, you can hear just specific sounds without losing concentration.

The farther you go... the harder it is to come back. The world has many cliffs, and it´s easy to fall of (Anderson Cooper).

                                                                                                                                            Fernanda León

How does it feel to read a really interesting book?

     It is a strange thing; for it is one thing that you feel, but many at once... for a long period of time. You feel a "knot" in the heart; you have the feeling that you will laugh... or cry. It somehow depends on the hour, the mood, and evon on the climate; really. A deep nostalgia for which never was, and never will be. A deep wish to at least for a moment, get lost in the worlds of which books are talking about. You let yourself be carriend by the emotion, but you are never satisfied. There is always something. One thing that, like having received orders from that of what you are reading, pulls you, tied with invisible chains that leave you vulnerable, and attract you even when you do not have the possibility to arrive there. There is always a key to untie the chains, but that key is thrown into the garbage and is confused with another key: the one given to you, which is another feeling: you fall in love with a character, you identify with another... that feeling just makes the knot tighter, calling you to what will never be.

     It makes you propose to yourself to quit anything else you're doing; to be there just a moment; and when you close the book and return to reality, you get disappointed. Because, how beautiful is that world! That with each inconvenience, each problem, becomes more perfect! How you wish to be there! Meeting even the most evil, just to get closer to a small part of the story! How fortunate are the characters to be part of that world! Each book has its own chains, an when you read to much, the mind gets lost. How it confuses you! And after some time, even you don´t know what you have in your mind, and when you try to find out, you get lost even deeper in your mind, questionig what in the beginning were solid columns of rock now have reduced into threads. You feel a character, a character of that book you love so much; all of your thoughts go to it. That character you would like to be. That character you would like to meet.