Musing Mondays (March 16)

EDIT: So apparently you can schedule posts all you want but if you don't put in the right time it's doesn't actually turn up. Sorry about the mess this week, guys, I think I'm going crazy. Happy Monday!

Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about talking to strangers…

We were all warned as children to 'never talk to strangers', but how do you feel about book-talk with random people? When you see people reading, do you ask what it is? Do you talk to people in the book store or the library? Why or why not? What do you do if people talk to you? (question courtesy of Dena)

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT with either the link to your own Musing Mondays post, or share your opinion in a comment here (if you don’t have a blog). Thanks.

As someone who has never had very many book-y friends, I was always worried that I would ramble on too much about what I was reading. This never bothered me too much, but sooner or later my friends would get that glazed look in their eyes that indicated that they had stopped listening some time ago. Because of this, I find that I'm very cautious about talking to strangers about books, even if I see them reading.

If it's in a place where I truly don't know the person - the bus, the doctor's office, in shopping centre - I rarely just start talking to them. I do, however (and my sister will attest to this), try to crane my neck sneakily to figure out what the book is. If I get caught and the person smiles, realising what I'm doing, I figure I'm safe and sometimes talk to them then.

At uni I'll usually ask, but more often than not what someone's reading is for class and they've got all off ten minutes to try to finish the book and they're not really in the right frame of mind to chat.

The bookstore, however, is an entirely different story. I LOVE it when people talk to me in the bookstore and I have no qualms whatsoever about talking to them. I get so many book recommendations this way! And I love being able to answer questions about books or authors - I think I'm spending too much time hovering in the book shop.

So if you're out-and-about with a book and you see some strange person who looks like they have severe neck condition, it's probably just me trying to book-spy. Come on over and say hi, I promise I'm not as freaky as I look.