Anyone who reads this blog knows how much I enjoy reading. But even I can admit there are a few unintended consequences of over reading that are hard to foresee. I’ve listed the top 9 problems with reading below.

1. You lose sleep. I can’t count how many times I’ve gotten in bed, exhausted, and picked up a book. Just a few pages, I tell myself. I’ll just read to the end of this chapter. And every time (EVERY SINGLE TIME!) I read far past that and spend the next day in a sleepy blur, waiting until I can get my hands on that book once more, unless, that is, I already finished it the night before. 😉
2. You live in a dream world. Read enough books and the characters and places in them begin to live in your mind. They seem so real! You’ll find yourself almost giving advice to others based on something a CHARACTER IN A BOOK did. This is not something that non-readers appreciate so be cautious. Readers, on the other hand, will understand.
3. You are book broke. On a budget? Doesn’t matter. Those books are beckoning and there’s not much you can do to resist it. But, and this is important, under no circumstances should you venture into a bookstore. Don’t do it because not only will you be broke but you will also find….
4. Your books take over your house. There’s no more room for you in your house because you have piles and piles of unread books covering every surface. You vow that you’ll sell them or give them away after you’ve read them, but….
5. You are addicted to your books. Give them away? Not this one, you tell yourself. This is my favorite. And this one and this one and this one and…. Pretty soon you realize that you won’t be giving away that book. Or that one. Or that one. Or that one.
6. You use words no one else has used since the 19th century. Reading historical fiction books can have problems all their own. You begin to think and speak like a person from that time period. But it could be worse, you could be inserting words and phrases that are entirely made up from Fantasy or Sci-Fi. Not that I’ve ever done that….
7. You forget to feed yourself. You sit down with a new book and then, just seconds later, you look up, dazed and confused. Only to find it’s been hours! And you’re starving! And… wait… let me just finish this page….
8. The library is not happy with you. It’s perfectly reasonable to assume that the library wants you to read, isn’t it? And they do. But they also want you to return that big stack of books on time and not owe a ginormous fee every time you come back, swearing you aren’t going to check out anything this time, but maybe you’ll just take a peek….
9. You can’t stop. Once you begin and get hooked, you can’t stop. Try to make a reader stop reading. Take away their book at breakfast and watch their eyes drift to the newspaper, the cereal box, and even the mail. Once you start, you cannot stop. You can’t! So why even try? 😉

So keep telling yourself that the library appreciates all those overdue fines you pay and that you have room for just one more book and that it’s okay to miss eating and sleeping and anything else you need to tell yourself. You have discovered the 9 problems with reading and you now know it’s not just you. Maybe we should start a group?

How many of these problems do you have? And, even harder, if your house was burning down and you were trying to get out of it (while falling all over your piles and piles of books), which one would you save?