It occurred to me, everyone has a reason for reading their favourite genre. So what's your why?

For me, romance has such an important place in my life. It's an escape, it's about happiness and it allowed me to gain a lot of comfort with the idea of romance, closeness and intimacy (both emotionally or otherwise). When I started out, I was gaining a sense of myself as an adult, and exploring romance really helped me come into my own as an independent adult by learning through these stories. I kind of just picked it up on my own, so it was one of the first things I learnt I loved on my own without my friends or my family, even though I eventually found friends through books. It also allowed me to determine what type of things I like and don't like, what traits I find attractive in others and in myself.

It also allowed me to find a community that allows me to feel like myself.

So that's my why for my genre. What's yours?

My personal sweet spot is 200-400 pages, though certainly I read and love books that don't fall in this range! But I think this is a good length to get engrossed in a book without it becoming too much of a time commitment.

Inspired by my dad, who loves first/last lines of books and has memorized many, and csdaley, whose favorite book quote is a first line, what's a first line that has stuck with you over time? Maybe it hooked you in to the rest of the book, maybe it set the tone, maybe it's just incredibly quoteable! I've got a couple:

In the myriadic year of our Lord—the ten thousandth year of the King Undying, the kindly Prince of Death!— Gideon Nav packed her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and she escaped from the House of the Ninth. Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderly again. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier

Szeth-son-son-Vallano, Truthless of Shinovar, wore white on the day he was to kill a king. The Way of Kings, Brandon Sanderson

Heyyyy! If you're stuck on a book to read next or even a series , what do you use? A wheel app or a physical jar ...or even something else ?

For those of you who like to write (or have to do a lot of it even if you don't like it), or like to annotate books, what are your favorite writing instruments?

For general writing, I like fountain pens (and my dozens of bottles of ink). Day to day, I use the Lamy Safari, but I have a handful of cheap Japanese "Preppy" fountain pens that write well and I have some other fountain pens of various quality/price.

I also recently got a brass pen with a Japanese made felt tip that also takes fountain pen ink and writes wonderfully. I have a dip pen and some acrylic inks somewhere but I rarely use that one.

All of the above require paper that will take the ink, so they're not ideal for annotating. I typically use a mechanical pencil when annotating, rather than ink. Unless I am annotating in my Kobo Libra Colour.

But for general writing I do lik pens and I try to pick up a variety of different or unusual pens when I can!