Everyone has their little quirks, particularly when it comes to something they’re passionate about. And I certainly have a love affair with books. I’d also be willing to call myself quite quirky.  This week’s Broke and the Bookish meme is all about the fessing up to your book related idiosyncrasies. So it’s confession time at the bubblewrappedblog.

Top Ten Bookish Confessions

1. I obsessively organize my bookshelves by theme. Even now in my little guest house I have two small bookshelves that  hold only a fraction of my collection. But there’s a poetry shelf, a fiction shelf (which is then micro organized  by theme as well), a practicalities shelf (guides, manuals, journals, etc), and two film shelves divided into school related and writing. My bookshelves in St. Louis are much more complicated, but I’ll spare you the breakdown.

2. If you borrow a book from me I track it, librarian style. I have a little book with entries for whose checked out what and when. No due dates or fines are involved but it eases my mind.

3. I never finished Rabbit Run because the character reminded me too much of an ex. But I talked about it in class like a champ. Cursed the character out something fierce too.

4. When I start a new book I look to see how many pages total are in it and constantly check the number against my progress. Getting to the finish is a huge part of the fun, or at times a raw necessity. Even with books that I like I check how close I am to the finish. Same thing with chapters. I can’t seem to help myself.

5. I read Twilight. I was Team Jacob. Don’t judge me.

6. My third grade teacher, Mr. Willmering told our class in order to become better readers and better students that we should read everything. Literally, everything. He told us to take every opportunity to read, including billboards as our parents drove us around. I still do this everyday whether I’m walking about or cruising in a car, I read everything possible.

7. When I was younger, about ten or so, I would stick money in my books as a bookmark. I’ve long since stopped hiding cash between the pages of my books, but it was great fun to open an old favorite and find twenty bucks. I still flip through my books before I donate them or loan them out, just in case.

8. My guilty pleasure in the reading world is romance novels. Sherrilyn Kenyon, J.R. Ward, Gena Showalter…the list goes on.

9. When I read books, particularly poetry, I have an involved system of arrows, hearts, and stars for lines or passages that I like. My books look like they’re  littered with half of a box of lucky charms. But it all makes sense to me, so I suppose that’s what matters.

10. I’m a terrible hypocrite. You just read my number nine confession and in addition to the heart/star/arrow system, I write comments in the margins and underline things. And on the rare occasion that I give up a book I’ve written all over I don’t erase a thing. The truth is that I’m lazy about it, but I justify keeping the scribbles because I think maybe I’m helping people by pointing out those passages. Lazy, lazy, lazy. Now when I buy a used book from Amazon or some other such place and it has writing in it, I grumble and groan and mentally curse whoever left behind their useless scratching. Ergo, hypocrite.

Now you know all my dirty little book secrets. I feel strangely at peace with confessing all my quirks. Hopefully, you’ll read at least one of these and go, “I do that too!”