Question: are you a nibbler or a chewer?
No, I’m not referring to what you do to your partner’s earlobes in the privacy of your own home. Get your mind out of the bedroom. I’m talking about books – and how you read them.
Do you nibble at them? Delicately reading a few pages every day until you’ve consumed the whole thing? Or do you chew on them, feverishly reading ten-chapter chunks at a time until you’ve gobbled them up? Does it depend on the story? Or do you read the same way no matter what? Does either method affect your enjoyment of a book?
I’m a nibbler. I always carry a book with me (with a backup in the car). I pull out my current book every chance I get, reading a page here and a page there whenever and wherever I can. I zip through scenes while waiting for my oil to be changed. Sitting at the dentist or doctor’s office. On my lunch break. During all those loud, annoying TV commercials. Waiting for my computer to boot up.
I’ve read books in cars, parking lots, stores, libraries, food courts, woods, hammocks, tree houses, and every place in between. If I could figure out how to put a book on my treadmill, read it, and turn the pages without a) falling off b) breaking my leg and c) making myself nauseous, I would. I’d probably exercise more too.
I tried one time. It wasn’t pretty, so now it’s magazines only on the treadmill.
You know what would be really great? If someone made a book holder that attached to your body, like those cloth things new moms carry their babies around in. That way, I could read every time I took a step. While I walked to the copy machine. Trudged up the stairs. Hiked in from the last available parking spot in the mall. I could probably get through a couple more books a year that way. Oh sure, I might get some bumps and bruises from not watching where I was going, but I think it would be worth it to whittle down my TBR pile.
Since I read in all sorts of places, I’ve learned to tune out the world around me. Crying kids. Obnoxious coworkers. Bangs and clangs of construction equipment. They don’t faze me at all. Not even those annoying people who chatter on their cell phone while they’re in the bathroom stall next to me. (Seriously people, is a call ever really that important?)
Why do I read the way I do? Time, baby. I just don’t have enough time. My schedule is so jam-packed that it’s hard to find free hours to read. As a result, I cram it in whenever I can.
Like now. I’ve got 15 minutes before I need to leave the house. Plenty of time to get through another chapter …
How do you read? Big chunks at a time? Spurts here and there? Or are you like me, and polish off pages whenever you can? Inquiring minds want to know …
No related posts.
Sometimes, if I only have a few minutes here or there, I nibble. Other times, I take like a 1/2 hour before I go to bed (which can end up going past my bedtime) and chew wholeheartedly and read half the book. Sometimes time really is on my side.
Depends. Both.
I prefer to guzzle.
I guess it depends on the book. Most romances and thrillers I inhale. Historical and SF I chew over. Mystery and literary I nibble. Lately, though, I haven’t had much time to settle down to nibble a book, so I’ve been grabbing things and gulping them down.
I agree with B.E. that it does depend on the book too. If I get really into something, I can usually polish it off in a few days (depending on how long I have to wait at the dentist’s office).
Right now though, I’m nibbling my way through “Fragile Things,” a book of short stories by Neil Gaiman. Strange, but interesting stuff.
I speedread so I guess I gobble.
But I do go back and chew
if the book is worth a second read.
I have an eating disorder.
The only opportunity I have to read in public is waiting to pick the kidlet up from school, so I nibble something kid-friendly then. (An adult with a book is like a side-show attraction. Somebody always wants to know “Whatcha readin’?” I want to appear enthusiastic about the joys of reading and talk about the book, so not my typical menu of blood and gore with sex for desert…)
The only other time I nibble is if the book in question is so bad, I can’t bear to read more than a few pages before I find something better to do with my time. Anything that qualifies as good gets devoured in as few bites as possible. “Just let me finish this chapter” is the most commonly uttered phrase at my house.
Since the time I told my starving child “just let me finish this chapter” while reading Already Dead by Charlie Huston (which I’d gotten two-thirds of the way through without realizing it had no chapters), she refuses to accept that delaying tactic unless I tell her how many pages that will be…
I nibble, chew, gobble, make a pig of myself. It depends on my time and the book. Lately I have been nibbling too much, but I prefer to gobble.
It depends…if I’m pressed for time, I nibble whenever I can. Or I set aside 15 min – all I can afford – and dedicate it to reading.
BUT, if the book’s amazing, it goes to the top of the priority list, things get neglected and I gobble. If I book looks so good I know I want to gobble, I hold on to it until I can take a good big block of time to read. Like vacation.
Oh yes, sometimes books take precedence over other things … like doing the laundry or washing the dishes. Those are the books I love. If there were more of them, I might switch from being a nibbler to a chewer.
I’m definitely a nibbler, like you because of various time constraints but oh how I wish I had few spare hours in each day to really chew on a good book.:grin:
I like to settle in and wallow in my books. Hence most of my (fiction) reading is done on the weekends, or on planes. I read non-fiction (aka research) on the train, in the evenings, etc.
I’m a nibbler. I read around interruptions and working, luckily I have a good memory!:lol:
I had to laugh when I read this because just yesterday I was waiting in line at the post office and was ticked at myself for forgetting to bring in a book, thinking that it would be just a quick run-in-and-out. Ha!:roll:
I have nibbler books all over the place – usually 6 to a dozen scattered around my life – at work, in the car, in my computer bag, in different rooms in the house (though the kitchen is off limits since I do have the ability to tune things out and was recently brought back to “real” time by the fire alarm announcing burnt to black cinders a pot of eggs I was boiling – sheesh! Thought that smell would never go away!).
But I also gulp when I have the chance or the book demands it. Started The Count of Monte Cristo after dinner one night and read straight through until finished – giving me barely enough time to rush off to work the next morning. And every page turned was well worth each yawn that day!
Yikes, Eve! Burnt eggs is definitely not a good smell.
Unfortunately, my post office doesn’t have seats in the waiting room, so I can’t really read there unless I sit cross-legged on the floor. It’s hard to hold my packages and thumb through a book at the same time. Hence my desire for a book holder …
Stack your packages on the flour and push them forward with your feet.
I do this when my mama makes me queue for her at sales.
I gobble. It doesn’t seem to matter what book it is, I prefer to sit down and read it in one sitting. Of course, this usually means I stay up half the night to finish the books, and look like something the cat dragged in the next day, but a great read is worth it!
I try to always have a book with me. Right now I’m reading a 450 page book that I’m trying to digest in 70 page chunks a day. Hopefully I’ll be done by tomorrow but maybe the next day. I hate leaving the house without a book. If I do, I’ve been known to stop off a the store and pick up a book, any one will do because I can’t stand sitting around without a book in my hands.
One of my goals with my nibbling is to get rid of my TBR pile this summer. I’m getting there, but it’s slow going sometimes. Especially since I know I’ll get a ton of free books at RWA in a few more weeks.
With fiction and narrative nonfiction, I chew–or more like swallow whole. If I don’t finish a novel in 2-3 days, I’m unlikely to finish it at all. If I lack the urge to make time for it, that means I don’t care all that much how it ends, and since life is too short to read boring books, I move on to the next potential gem in the TBR pile.
With non-narrative nonfiction I can nibble, though. I recently started a new job where I commute by bus instead of car, so I bring research books to read on the bus and in the cafeteria. I’ve been in the same encyclopedic tome about the Grande Armee for going on three weeks now, and that’s fine with me. I’m picking up all kinds of nuggets that might come in handy for my WIP, and it’s not like I lose the plot or the excitement of a story if I don’t plow through it fast enough.
With my kids. . . I have to nibble. . . I hate it. By choice, I’m a chewer. Before marriage and kids, I’d read 3-4 books a weekend and another several during the week. Now, I’m lucky to get through 1 book a week. Sigh.
I feel like I’ve got more than enough on my plate already, and I don’t have kids.
I don’t see how all the moms out there handle their kids as well as make time for themselves.
I read in chunks — like when I first wake up in the morning and at night right before I turn off the bedside light and go to sleep. On weekends, it’s a wonderful treat to gorge myself on a book that I’m reading and if it’s a story that I’m totally in love with, I’ll steal time away from other things. Sure, you could say that sometimes I nibble… but I nibble some, then a little more… then more nibbling until I’ve consumed a big portion!
Both. Depends on how much the book draws me in and how much time I have available to me, which fluctuates constantly. I start every day reading and I’ll stay up late for a really good one!
No nibbling for me. I’m a total glutton. I won’t even start a book if I don’t have time to finish, because regardless of what else is going on – house fire, urgent phone calls, work, pretty much life in general – I’m not looking up until I’m done. This drives my family nuts, but I explain that to me, reading is the same as watching a movie. If you put in a DVD and start watching, do you really want to stop it, go to bed, then see the rest in small bites throughout the week? No way! You have to see the whole thing, so you know how it ends.
My biggest problem is that I pretty much write the same way. I drink a lot of coffee when I’m writing a book. It quickly becomes a marathon of late nights and early mornings and me glued to the computer, because I have to know how it ends.
I wonder if there’s a 12 step program?
I will always have a book with me to nibble on in free time, but I love to chew whole-heartedly on whatever I’m reading once I fall under its spell.
I’m an nibbler due to time constraints also. But if a book grabs me by the throat, then I can stand to lose a few hours of sleep.
Since I also tell myself, “just another chapter” I think we can start a 12 step program. But what would we do in our spare time waiting for a BA (books anonymous) meeting to start?
And if they ever made a book holder that attaches to your body I’d have to wear a helmet, but oh, the books I could read.
I am a nibbler/chewer. It can depend on simply the time of year. Summer is my nibbler time. I have absolutely no time to read (kids home from school), so I read whenever I can. During the other times in the year, I can be a chewer especially if the book is fabulous, but then the heart ache of ending a great book and still wanting more, so sad. So I really try to control the chewing,
I’m definitely a swallower.
Actually, I often have two books on the go. One for chewing and one for nibbling….
Oh yes, I’ve fallen into the “one more chapter” trap a time or two myself.
Too funny about the Books Anonymous meeting! We could read our books then talk about how we need to stop … it truly is a vicious cycle.
I’m a nibbler at work because I’m constrained by the limits of my breaks, but at home I’m a gobbler of most things. Really *hard* SF I nibble because although I like it, it often makes my head hurt. Romance, thrillers and fantasy I blitz through – but I will often go back and re-read them if I enjoyed them a lot. (although I don’t necessarily re-read them any slower!)
Non-fiction. I plod. Even when I enjoy the topic, I plod. Sigh.
Lilke Bernita, I’m usually a guzzler. I’m a nibbler only by necessity, if I have to be. Otherwise, I’m the girl who stayed up and read her Nancy Drews by flashlight, under the covers.