Sara Strocel

When I was a kid, I had a mental image of an "avid reader." This was someone who read daily. For the avid reader, a day without reading was like a day without breathing. It was impossible. I call these people the Regular Readers. But eventually, I met binge readers who go in spurts of reading nothing and reading everything. For them, reading was less of a marathon and more like interval training. They would stay up late at night to finish a book and then jump onto the next one in a series. They would read a book in between classes, attempt a chapter on the bumpy bus ride and get so lost in a story that they forgot to eat lunch on the weekend. But then, once they're done, they read nothing for weeks. I call these people the Binge Readers. As I think about my own family, my daughter is a Regular Reader like me. My sons are both Binge Readers. Right now, my middle child is plowing through every Percy Jackson book in the series. I'm pretty sure my wife is a Regular Binge Reader. She reads daily but can get so lost in a book she stays up late to finish it. I share this because some avid readers are Regular Readers. Others are Binge Readers. Some read across multiple genres. Others stick to one genre and even one author for months. Some read one book at a time. Others read multiple books and enjoy the conversation that occurs between books. Some are diehard physical book fans. Others (like myself) read e-books, physical books, and audio-books. Some prefer text heavy works and others vary between text heavy and graphic novels. Some race through books at a break-neck speed and some read slowly and carefully, leaving notes in the margins, and wrestling with ideas. Some read 150 books in a year and others 4. Some re-read their favorite works and it feels like returning home only to gain a new perspectives and others bristle at the thought of returning to the same work. And all of these people are avid readers.