An interesting taxonomy of readers:
The Hate Reader. Oh, you. You pretend to be curmudgeonly, you do, but you really just devour the reading you do in a different way. You’re loving it nearly as much as you’re hating it, and maybe then some, even as you complain the author can’t put two sentences together properly or that the book is dragging hopelessly in the middle and what kind of plot twist is that, even? […]
The Chronological Reader. Slow and steady wins the race, dear reader. You are the tortoise to the promiscuous reader’s distracted-at-any-turn hare. You buy a book, you read it. You buy another, you read it. Perhaps you borrow a book at the library. You read it, and then you return it, and you get another, which you will read. You may not remember where you began, what the first book that kicked it all off was, and you likely have no idea where you’ll end, but the point is, you will go through each book methodically and reasonably, until it is done. […]
The Book-Buster. Is your home strewn with books scattered about, this way and that, their pages turned, their covers folded over, their backs broken and their limbs splayed out on either side? You are a destroyer of books, but you love them so. Your spirit book character is Lennie of Of Mice and Men. You just want to hug the books, squeeze them tighter and tighter, you adore them so much, you really don’t know you’re hurting them. […]
Delayed Onset Reader #1. You are without a doubt a book lover, and when you walk into a bookstore or any place books are available, you can’t help yourself, you buy one or many. When you get home you put them aside, often reverently, as if they were art, displaying them on a bookshelf or propping them up on your bedside table, pages ready to meet your eyes as soon as you have the moment. But you’re very, very busy, and days, weeks, or months may go by before you actually crack open one of these books. […]
Delayed Onset Reader #2. You are not a book lover. You buy books so you can show them off. If you are wealthy, you may have a mahogany-paneled library for expressly this purpose. Since you don’t waste time on books, we won’t waste time discussing you, but if you ever do pick up a book and read it and love it, you can consider yourself cured. […]
The Bookophile. More than reading, you just love books. Old ones, the way they smell, the crinkles and yellowing of the pages; new ones, the way they smell, too, the crispness, running your hands over a stack of them at the bookstore. […]
The Anti-Reader. You are the book version of the person who claims “I never watch TV! I don’t even own one!” You never read books, because you find them too long. You consider blog posts too long, too, and are always penning comments that say “TLDR” to express how short something can truly be and still be meaningful. Unfortunately, you are the lady or man who doth protest too much, and you may instead have some deep insecurity about reading that led you to this book-flavorless existence. […]
The Cross-Under. You are a grown-up who reads Y.A. or kids books, or a kid who reads adult books, and there is a place for you in society, finally. Your existence acknowledged after so many years, you no longer have to feel shame at your questionable reading habits but can instead bask in the admiration of book blogs and feel a part of the vanguard. You are not ruled by categories; you are a free thinker. […]
The Multi-Tasker. This is the nice way of saying you are a promiscuous reader, but it’s not that you don’t finish reads. Instead, you just have a sort of hippie reading way about you, free love or some such. You might start the day out with a few pages from one novelist, then read something entirely different on the subway, and when you come home from work, another work as well. Your bedtime read, too, might be different, and all in all, when you count up the books, you’ve got quite a lot of irons in the fire all at the same time. […]
The Sleepy Bedtime Reader. Do you feel the only time you have to read is when you’re about to go to sleep? You tote your book into bed with you and it’s so very comfortable and the book is so deliciously good, but you cannot keep your eyes open and end up waking up with a book on your face and your light still on at 3 a.m.? […]
Update: Many More Types of Book Readers: A Diagnostics Addendum:
The Book Snob. You are hard to impress, Little Miss or Mister. You only read books that are well reviewed by critics that you have determined to be of the highest caliber. […]
The Hopelessly Devoted. You stick to the authors you like, and you read them, pretty much exclusively, whatever they write, good or bad, regardless of reviews or the opinions of your friends or family. […]
The Audiobook Listener. So, ya like audiobooks? That’s cool. There’s a place for you, person whose ears are essentially eyes. […]
The Conscientious Reader. It’s nonfiction or nothing for you, reader! It should have a purpose, too, and be meaningful. You should learn something. […]
The Critic. Yes, it is easier for you to hate than to love, but when you love, you love deeply and in the most eloquent of fashions. It’s not a book if you don’t discourse about it, and so, discourse you shall! […]
The Book Swagger. You’re the one wandering around book conventions with that acquisitive gleam in your eye and a pile of ARCs in your tote bag. If it’s free, you’ll take it, and even if it’s not, you’ll try to get it for free. […]
The Easily Influenced Reader. If someone says it, they must be right! You listen to everyone, from your mom to Oprah to the members of your book club to Michiko Kakutani, and you believe them all! There are so many books for you to read, you better get started. […]
The All-the-Timer/Compulsive/Voracious/Anything Goes Reader. Wherever you go, whatever you do, there’s a book with you. It doesn’t matter what it is, really, so long as there are pages with words on them, or an e-reader with words on it. […]
The Sharer. You read something you like and you simply will not stop talking about it; you tell everyone you know, and you will not give up until they read it too. And then you want to talk about it. […]
The Re-Reader. You know what you like, and instead of branching out and possibly finding something new that you don’t like, you focus on what you do. You read the same books over and over again, returning to them as if they’re old friends, which, pretty much, they are. […]
The “It’s Complicated” Reader. You are a combination of many of these things and yet completely different, too. Each book means a new type of reader exists in your soul; you refuse to be defined or categorized. You are a freeform, wild, woolly entity. […]
The Cat. You creep around the house all day and sneak peeks at all those large, paper things that your owner leaves lying about. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, your owner has left one open, and you lie on top of it and let its smooth pages touch your whiskers. […]