Reflections of Reading habits

Most of the people in the pictures, with the possible exception of picture #4, are reading for pleasure, what’s defined as extensive reading; they are reading what they want, when they want and where they want, reading for the sake of reading. I would say all of them, with the possible exception of the picture of students in class, the dominant feeling at the moment could be peace of mind, a travel inside, a step into a different level of consciousness a new world, the world depicted in that narrative. 

At least, those are my feelings when I read, mainly when reading in my mother tongue, Spanish. If I had to choose among different literary genres, I would probably choose either history books or crime novels, no matter the language they are written, Spanish or English. However, depending on my mood, sometimes I read other genres like science fiction, paperbacks or even poetry, and in this last case, I definitely choose Spanish, even though I consider myself close to bilinguism, the feelings transmitted by poetry in your mother tongue are never achieved in a second language.

My taste in literature has evolved through the years and it’s quite different to that from my teenage readings, but what’s changed the most is the the time and the format of what I read. I used to read books from public libraries, received as presents, bought in second hand markets (…), all of them in paper, of course; now I seldom buy a book, maybe one a year for Xmas or my birthday, but 99% of books I read now are in e-book format, much less glamour but much more convenient, no space problems, no chance of losing them (…). The moment of reading has changed as well, years ago I had no time problems, no kids, no seriuos job (…), I could read whenever I felt like it, whereas now, when I finally find a moment to read after I’ve finished all my duties, most of the times I feel too tired to even turn on the e-reader. Fortunatelly weekends exist...