After a lifetime of reading, any book lover knows that there are many different problems that can come up during our reading or simply involving our books. After much consideration, I have cultivated the top ten problems that book lovers face, from personal experience and consultation with fellow book lovers:
1. When I’m not holding a book, I don’t know what to do with my hands
It doesn’t seem like hands were made with much else in mind except holding open books — I mean, have you noticed how handy (pun unintentional) opposable thumbs are when you need to hold a book with only one hand?
2. I find bookmarks everywhere, but not when I actually need them
I have a collection of dozens and dozens of bookmarks, and when I travel, that’s on the top of my list souvenir-wise. However, when I start reading a book then have to come to a stop for whatever reason, I realize that I don’t have any bookmarks around; this is when a receipt or a Post-it note folded in half becomes very handy. I’ve even folded up (unused) tissues as bookmarks — anything that’ll work.
3. Sometimes I don’t remember which plot or character belongs to which book because I’m reading too many at once
One way that I read so many books is by reading multiple at the same time, but there are occasions when I’ll get confused about an event or a character’s personality traits, because I can’t remember which book they came from. The best way to solve this issue is to read different genres when reading many books at once.
4. Too many books to choose from
My shelves are full of books that I’ve been wanting to read, but when I finish a book and try to decide which to read next, it’s so hard because I want to read them all. I end up either having to choose one over the rest or — unwisely — starting two or three books in one day and then one of those always ends up on the backburner and takes me much longer to finish.
5. The movie is never as good as the book
Okay, I’ll admit that there are rare instances when the opposite is true. (For example, I thought the writing of "The Maze Runner" was absolutely wretched but the movie was quite entertaining.) For the most part, though, the writing of a screenplay is never good enough to match up to the writing of the novel, and there are always too many details of the novel to fit in without changing. Book lovers typically leave the theatre angrily listing all the differences and omitted details to their friends.
6. Trusting someone enough to lend them a book, then it’s returned with a bent cover or spine
Part of being a book lover means you want to take very good care of your books — unless it’s your favorite and it’s simply falling apart from the sheer number of times you’ve read it. So when someone wants to borrow a book, and you decide you trust them enough to take care of your baby, it’s heartbreaking to have it returned in less-than-pristine condition.
7. The struggle of drinking/eating and reading simultaneously
There are many ways to go about this difficult reading maneuver. Often I’ll lay the book on the table and use my phone as a paperweight while I eat, or use one hand to hold the book and the other to hold a coffee mug. Even that doesn’t solve the whole problem, though; I have a few books with popcorn butter on their pages to preach to that.
8. Running out of shelf space
I have three standard bookcases in my room. They are absolutely full, and most shelves are double-shelved with books. I have a wide, waist-height cabinet next to my bed, also crammed full with books; my dresser has about five stacks of books on it; and the shelves of my closet have a couple hundred more books hidden from sight. I’ve run out of shelf space so many times that I’m even running out of extra places to stash my books.
9. Spending all my money on books
Back in high school, after I got a paycheck, I would almost immediately go to the bookstore, telling myself I would “just browse a bit.” I’d often end up spending the majority of my money in that one go. Thanks to the expense of college, and other things like gas, I can’t let myself splurge on books all the time; but when I can, I certainly do.
10. Never having enough time to read all the books I want to
As I said before, there are shelves and shelves full of books just waiting to be read. No matter how many I seem to read, though, I never feel like I’m making a dent; even when I read 49 books last summer (if that number bothers you, it bothers me, too — my goal was 50) it seems like my TBR pile continued to pile up. If only I could stop time for a little while and read all the books I wanted — maybe then I would get somewhere.
