My mum just told me earlier today that she’ll never get why I spend money on books that I’ve already read. For me, it’s a matter of self-expression, because my shelf says something about who I am - to guests, and to myself.

But it’s not even just that. They’re also souvenirs. If I’ve enjoyed my time in that world, with those characters, I don’t want to part with it. The physical book is a token of the time I spent and the adventures I had inside it.

I’ve been re-reading the Scott Pilgrim comics lately (fans of the series will know why), and that’s a prime example of very smart literature about a very dumb person. Much as I love the protagonist, he definitely provides a glimpse into the world of thoughtless and selfish people, and it works so well.

I subvocalise in the sense that I ‘act out’ the dialogue in my head with great deliberation. If I think I might make a line land better by putting the emphasis on a different syllable, I go back and ‘mentally pronounce’ that line again.

I’ve recently joined a book club, and I’ve become a little self-conscious about how much faster some of the other members read. I know there’s techniques out there to read faster, but honestly, I don’t think I need techniques; I’m pretty sure I could speed myself up any time I wanted by just not doing the dramatic pauses and re-takes and all the stopping to get the voice just right. But I don’t want to stop doing those things, because I feel like that’d take a lot of the fun out of reading.