What is your reading "style"??

Hi all,
I've worked days this weekend, so about the only thing I have had time for is reading. Which I LOVE!!!! I could read all day, every day. But, there is a "method" to my reading.

When I was much younger, I read all the Barbara Cartland, "old" Harlequin romances, and mysteries I could get my hands on. The mysteries were "series" such as "Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators". While these were called "series" they were not like the series of today. Back 25 or 30 years ago, an author wrote a book. And that was that....One story about a few characters, and the story ended. Nowadays, there are books written about the secondary characters, and the secondary characters in THEIR books, and on and on. While many of these are "stand alone" stories, I can NOT stand to read a book only to find out there was two or 3 books written about this character BEFORE the book I am currently reading.

So, I guess I am what you call a collector. I will collect all the books in a series BEFORE I begin to read any of the books. Then I must read them all in the correct order. This has driven my friend, Tracey crazy! She always said "What's the big deal? You get enough of the previous story in the current story." Ahhh, maybe for YOU, but I am very noisy! I want to know EVERYTHING! And not second hand!

I would love to hear from others......Do you really care about all the fine details of the past stories? Are you satisfied with the "general" idea of what happened in previous books?? Do you have to have all the books ready to read before you begin a series??

Please post and tell me about your reading style!

This is the ONLY way to go "antique-ing"!

Well, it started out simple enough. I had to take my mother to the grocery store. As usual, I went to Starbucks, got something yummy to drink, and grabbed about $40.00 worth of magazines to browse and gain ideas. Ohhhh, all those wonderful glossy pictures! All those neat little tips, and ideas! I decided I couldn't wait to get home and clean a little, re-organize and create my own "glossy magazine spreads". While thinking about all the stuff I wanted to do, I remembered there were a lot of old stuff in my parents' attic. When my mom was finished and we were loading the car with her groceries, I asked if I could go in the attic, look around, etc. She said sure. (She wants the attic cleaned out anyway, so "bonus" for her!) Well, well, well.....did I hit the "motherload"!!! I got an teapot, a crystal perfume bottle with stopper, a tiny, tiny teacup and little dessert dish, a green glass vase...all belonging to my dad's mom. I also got my dad's grandfather's shaving mug as well as a few pieces belonging to my mom's side of the family. I started cleaning up my goodies last night, still have to finish up a piece of furniture today. But all of this wonderful stuff....for just the price of gas to go from Va Beach to Norfolk! And what's really cool to me? I KNOW who these articles belonged to. While its great fun to go into those little shops and buy stuff, I know the history/owner of the pieces I now own.

So go up in those attics.....see what YOU can use to decorate your house!!! Those glossy magazine spreads will have NOTHING on you!