I went through a phase in upper elementary school/middle school where "only Classics" was kinda my motto, so I gravitated towards Dickens because the complicated syntax made me feel smarter.

I'll absolutely have to read Pickwick, though.

I think it depends on the author.

As for King, I feel he truly excels in short fiction, but struggles with sustaining his longer books.

When I was very young, I really loved audiobooks because I loved being read to - even though I could read very well on my own. I used to check out books on tape from the library on the regular until we stopped going to the library as frequently - I didn't grow up in a walkable town (although I did walk everywhere!) so I struggled to get places, even for school.

My 12-year-old LOVES audiobooks, but she also reads graphic novels and text novels. I think it's good to switch up the format every now and again; nothing's off-limits.

I have plenty of friends who also love audiobooks, but I'm hesitant to try again - I tend to tune out spoken word, and I feel like that gives audiobooks short shrift.

For me, it was easier to branch out a little bit because my go-to genres are Fantasy/High Fantasy and Historical Fiction, with a smattering of Classics (almost any genre.)

When I want to get out of a rut, I started with baby steps - so, instead of Historical Fiction, I read a Historical Romance (by an author my friend, who has a similar background, likes/dislikes, and sense of humor to mine, recommended; I figured if she'd enjoyed the books, I was more likely to enjoy them as well); instead of a Fantasy/High Fantasy, I tried a Mystery with Fantasy elements; etc.

Kids' deaths that I don't see coming - for example, the final battle sequence of Mockingjay messed me up. (The Games themselves, eh, no problem, I was pretty sure I knew what I was getting into, but the parachutes to the perimeter? My stomach dropped.)

Maybe it's me, but I like those kinds of "extraneous" chapters, like the whale anatomy chapters in Moby Dick or the 8 million "Still Knitting" chapters in A Tale of Two Cities.

For the record, I did read an abridged version of Les Mis and felt like a lot was missing/inaccurate, which I found extremely frustrating. Reading the full-length version was much more comfortable. *shrugs*

Totally random, but despite the fact that Pickwick Papers is Anne Shirley's comfort book in Anne of the Island, and I was obsessed with the Anne books in my early teens, I have never actually read it. (I've read A Tale of Two Cities, and half-assed an abridged version of Great Expectations, not to mention having read A Christmas Carol which is short enough that I could probably read it aloud to/with my daughter to see how familiar she is with the story.)

If I'm reading Classics, it's to revisit (or, more likely, actually read) something I was supposed to have read in high school or at uni but blew off (& survived the class anyway) because teenagers are real know-it-all jerks sometimes.

I will occasionally do a "Classics Catch-Up" choice, but I'm more likely to read something escapist or "easy" when I have very little time to myself. That meant a lot of YA and graphic novels at one point; more recently, it means romance & erotica. Between the YA/graphic novels phase and now, I was really into nonfic.

If I get into a slump, I read short story anthologies and essay collections.

Folks with learning disabilities, especially folks in environments where there's a lot of shame associated with "different," get really good at masking symptoms & struggles.

It's way easier when you're younger (elementary/grammar school age; not sure what the term would be in your country) but as the work gets more difficult, your old coping skills and masking techniques start to fall apart.

You're not stupid; your brain just works differently.

Getting diagnosed really should help you figure out how to work with the way your brain works; no shame, just support.

It depends on the type of nonfic I'm reading; I don't often take notes, but sometimes I'll snap photos of paragraphs that strike me as especially relevant - I did this several times while reading books about the 1918 Influenza pandemic (or I will annotate them on a re-read if it's a purchased/personal copy, like my Mary Roach books) - and text or share them with friends on social media.

For me, the best way to remember what I've read is to talk (or type!) about it with other people, either folks who've read the same book or friends I'm trying to convince to read it, because I connect my excitement about something cool/interesting/maddening I learnt from the book to that conversation.

Oh, and I read some nonfic at a much slower rate than I read fiction, so it may take me months-and-months to finish a "heavy" subject with a lot of technical language but I'll blow through a 400pp novel in like a day. I don't worry; I don't judge.

It was published as a reaction to the men's movement (think Iron John and shit like that), which was itself a reaction of 2nd-wave feminism ... and it was really popular with a certain type of woman in the late 1980s/early 1990s.

It was one of the books my mother read in the year leading up to my parents' divorce, so I've never actually cracked the spine.

I'm a re-reader, so if I enjoy a book enough to re-read it, I'll purchase it, but ... I also use the library heavily, especially if I'm exploring a new-to-me author or genre, or going through an author binge (i.e. - the summer I decided to read most of Jennifer Weiner's back catalogue or when I read The Sandman in 2020) or whatever personal reading challenge I set for myself, like read more mysteries or try a contemporary romance, etc.

If I find I'm re-reading a book over the course of a checkout or renewing so I can re-read it, I'll add it to my wish list, either to purchase myself or receive as a gift.

So, for me, re-readability is a massive factor for purchase vs library checkout.

There are so many books/series that I've re-read over the years that I don't think I'll be able to come up with even a fraction of a list.

Like most of us in the past 25 or so years, I'll add the Potter books - I'd re-read them while waiting for a new book to ship (first one I had to wait for was Goblet of Fire) ... and have likely re-read them 10 or more times, not counting reading them aloud to my now-12-year-old. (Dialect spelling, though ... *wipes sweat from brow knowing I've mangled it for Yorkshire and its surrounds*)

As a kid, I stopped visiting the library because I struggled to find interesting and LONG books ... and waiting for an inter-library loan was really hard, especially if I had no way to get there & pick it up in time. (I'd walked a few times, but it was literally several miles and, non-hyperbolically, uphill both ways ... not to mention the streets being narrow & not at all conducive to walking safely.) So, my options were ... raid Dad's books or re-read my own. I did both, often swiping copies from Dad (which I still have 30-odd years later) or having to Scotch-tape tattered and well-read paperbacks together so I wouldn't lose pages.

Dracula is a frequent re-read, and I find new details every time I read.

The Scarlet Pimpernel was one of my favorites in middle school; I'd switch off between it and A Tale of Two Cities for re-reads until I "discovered" the Vampire Chronicles. (Actually, it's less "discovered" and more "Dad didn't have anybody else to talk to about books, so he pulled a version of 'Neil Gaiman talking to his daughter about Goosebumps' when I was reading Dracula ... fortunately, it turned out better for me than for Gaiman's daughter. Well, mostly. I wasn't scared by the books, but I probably should've been reading other things!)

'Salem's Lot is part reaction to Dracula and part meditation on the insidious banality of Evil. It's not supposed to be redemptive; it's supposed to scare the sh!t out of you.

I wanted to hurl the last book across the room when I finished it. (Note, I was in my late 20s when I read the books. It gave me something to chat about with my teenaged nieces & we had LOADS of amazing discussions about toxic relationships, bad writing, and #TeamJacob so I feel like I really won in the end for the books bringing me closer to them.)