Bookish Things I've Quit

I'm coming in a bit late for Top Ten Tuesday today, but we just got back from a long weekend getaway to Cleveland and Niagara Falls at 12:30 a.m. last night (yawn...) and I didn't have time to put a post together while we were away! Today's topic, provided by the ladies at The Broke and the Bookish, is about quitting -- anything we've stopped doing that's in any way book-related. I think I've shed a few negative bookish habits over the years, but I've also stopped doing a few things I'd like to get back to. What bookish things have YOU quit?

1. I've quit these genres: chick-lit, romance, Tudor-era historical fiction, cozy mysteries.
I used to read a lot books that fell into these categories (authors like Sophie Kinsella, Jennifer Crusie, Philippa Gregory, Diane Mott Davidson, Nancy Ahterton -- you get the idea) in college and my early 20s, and eventually I just sorta grew out of them. I'm hardly saying I'll never read another book in these genres (and in fact I still read a few -- like Emily Giffin, whom I'd classify as a chick-lit author, and Donna Andrews, who writes the Meg Langslow cozies) but for the most part, I don't seek out books in these genres (although there are a few semi-cozy mystery series I'd like to try).

2. I've quit feeling like I have to finish a book even if I'm not enjoying it.
I used to feel like I owed it to the book and its author to complete the story, but now I'm more of the mindset that there are millions of books out there and there's no reason to waste time on a crappy read when I could be absorbed in something awesome. This is one bookish habit I'm glad to have broken.

3. I've quit reading YA, for the most part.
I've come to the realization that young adult books just aren't for me -- with a few exceptions. As an almost-30-year-old, I find that the themes, the teen romances and the high school drama just don't resonate with me. This is not an across-the-board "quit" -- I'll still give special-sounding ones a try (for instance, I LOVED "I'll Give You the Sun" by Jandy Nelson) but I typically avoid YA.

4. I've quit reading my own books (not a good thing).
It seems like every year I resolve to start reading all the books on my own shelves -- and it has yet to happen. It has to do with my job; working at a library I'm surrounded by ALL THE BOOKS, and I'm always finding stuff to check out, and I guess it feels like I need to read those first since they have a sort of time limit (although you can renew stuff 10 times at my library, so that's really not a good excuse). As a result, I seldom read books that I actually own -- and I have quite a few that I've picked up secondhand over the years. It's almost like I'm giving a book the death knell when I purchase it instead of checking it out from the library.

5. I've quit reading books right before seeing their movie renditions.
What a relief it was to break this habit! I used to just have to read the book before seeing its movie version. The biggest example of this is Harry Potter; I'd re-read the entire series before each new movie came out. i finally realized that this practice ruined the movies for me, as I spent the entire film picking out every single difference. Now I'm the opposite kind of reader: I try never to read a book within a few months of seeing the movie. Occasionally it happens -- I finally read "Still Alice" right before the movie came out on DVD -- but I always find I enjoy the movie more if I can view it as a separate experience and have some distance from the book.

6. I've quit reading authors' collected works (sad face).
This is another bad habit that I'd like to change. Before I started blogging and working at a library -- two facets of my life that combine to make me dizzy with literary possibility -- I would enjoy a book and then immediately read a bunch of other stuff by the same author. Now I read a book I enjoy and add all the author's other work to my Goodreads to-read list... and then never actually read those books because there are so many other things I want to get to. I suspect I'm missing out on a lot of potential favorite authors because I keep putting off reading more than one of their books. I really want to fix this unfortunate tendency his for several reasons, not the least of which is that it's just plain fun to get absorbed in one author or series and do a binge read.