The Dreaded Bookish Mind Blank | Discussion

Posted on by Holly

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I have a bookish dilemma, my friends.

I think about books a lot. In any given moment, chances are that I’ve either thought about reading or will be thinking about reading within five or ten minutes. I’m a bookworm through and through.

However, I’ve noticed that I often experience what I’m going to call “bookish mind blanks.” Whenever I walk into a bookstore, it’s as if I’ve forgotten every book on my TBR that I would have liked to purchased. Similarly, the titles of all of the books I’ve ever loved and enjoyed suddenly vacate my brain whenever someone asks me for a recommendation. It’s kind of like writer’s block or blanking out when taking an exam. For some reason, my mind just cannot get hold of any of my bibliophile knowledge.

In short: when called upon, my bookishness often fails me.

Does anyone else experience these weird blanks? Do you struggle to give recommendations on the spot because you can’t think of certain book titles or authors? Let me know in the comments section below!

Yours,

HOLLY

44 thoughts on “The Dreaded Bookish Mind Blank | Discussion”

  1. For sure. It bothers me especially when I read tags that ask for favourite books or characters and whatnot. I simply cannot call anything to mind.

    I guess it’s like I live the moment to the fullest and then forget all about it because I want to focus on what comes next? I don’t know, it’s so weird. I wish I could remember stuff like that.

    I wish I had a favourite book!! But each experience is different to me so I can’t really compare.

    So yeah, you are not alone at all 🙂

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    1. OMG you’re I didn’t even think about book tags, but it always happens to me then, too! It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one who feels this way sometimes 🙂

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  3. This is so true! When someone asks for a book rec, I go completely blank and become the most unhelpful person in the planet 😂😂 And when I’m in a bookstore I can never decide! Especially if the books are expensive. I usually end up choosing a book I’ve never heard about but has positive goodreads reviews by bloggers I like.

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    1. Ugh mind blanks in bookstores are THE WORST. It always takes me eons to go shopping because I can never remember any books that I wanted to buy. Goodreads is always a life saver in those situations! 🙂

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  4. Yes, me too! It’s so weird, and it’s not just with books. It’s when one is put in the spotlight about anything. ‘What is your favourite food?’ ‘What is a good website to trawl?’ – for the most part, there are so many amazing books in so many amazing genres that one can’t just choose one. It would be as thought one was generalising an entire world.

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    1. That’s so true! Whenever anyone asks my what my favorite song is I never know how to respond. I usually say that my favorite food is breakfast food in general, especially granola. And don’t even get me started on mind blanks during exams or presentations… they’re the worst!

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  5. Recommending a book or books seems to me to necessarily be a slow task, I certainly can’t name things off the cuff.

    But a friend once asked me for some good locked room mysteries to get her started, and so I was able to peruse my shelves and compile a list pacing myself as I went. It felt like recommending books needed craft in it self.

    I think, in a way, reading exists in such an interesting space that it’s difficult to access that space on the spot!

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    1. I definitely agree, and you phrased it in such a great way: it’s a sort of craft. Recommending a book that someone truly enjoys takes time and a fair amount of knowledge about that person’s tastes and interests. Recommendations shouldn’t be rushed!

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  6. Oh yes, this totally happens to me! This weekend I discovered that someone I’ve known for 6 years is a total YA fangirl and was SO SAD that I hadn’t realised and then wanted to ask her about books and promptly forgot them all. I’m quite good at it if I’m in front of goodreads or my bookshelf or I’ve read about it in the last month: otherwise, nothing.

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    1. I’m so glad I’m not the only one! Also, that’s super exciting that one of your friends also loves YA! I love unexpectedly finding out that people are bookish. It hasn’t happened often to me, but when it does I get incredibly excited. 🙂

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  7. I have that, but in a different more irritating form. It’s when I go to the library with the book I want in mind, and the book isn’t avaliable there! Also, I hate when I go to the library with the book I want in mind and instead of getting the book I want, I just get some random book.

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    1. That used to happen to me all the time when I worked at my town library in high school. I would just pick random books off the shelves that looked interesting instead of actually reading the books already on my TBR list… definitely not helping! 🙂

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      1. I still do that now! I wish it wasn’t a habit of mine, but it does help me find the good books I do find, so I can’t say that I’d completely stop doing it.. My TBR is filling up so much, and I just can’t push it down, all the books on it are so good! 🙂

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  8. I remember specific favourites, but not so much specific recommendations for others, usually I flick through my goodreads and it jolts my memory- and once I find one I find it opens up my blockage

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  9. I’ve definitely been there. Oh, how frustrating! Although, authors are easier to remember. I was delighted recently to find an illustrated book about astronomy by H.A. Rey, the author of the Curious George series. (It was for my grandson.)

    Lately, though, I keep a list of TBR titles on my phone, and also a list of recently read titles. That helps prime the gray matter.

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    1. That’s a really good point about authors being easier to remember than individual books, especially when I’ve read a bunch of books by the same author. Keeping a phone list is a really good idea!

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  10. Definitely – I thought this was just me! Someone recently asked me what my favourite book was as a child and I literally couldn’t think of anything that I’d read and really enjoyed before the age of about 16! I had to visualise my bookshelves to try to come up with something. Maybe the problem is that because we read so much lots of stories get blurred together?

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    1. I tend to visualize my shelves a lot too when I’m trying to recommend books to people 🙂 I definitely think you’re right about stories blurring together. Many of the books that I read in middle school and early high school seem like such a blur now that I’m in college! That’s one of the reasons why I love rereading books so much– all of those fuzzy details suddenly become so much clearer.

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    1. I can definitely relate. It’s worse now that I’m in college and have no time to read for fun during the semester. It’s like I have to flip my bookish switch off and then flip it completely on again whenever I’m on break. During breaks I suddenly turn into a turbo bibliophile and read everything I can get my hands on. I really miss reading for pleasure when classes are in session!

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    1. Ugh that must be so frustrating! I worked at a library when I was in high school and the same thing would happen to me then, too. Why can’t all of that bookish knowledge just stay put?! 🙂

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  17. You’re not alone 😛 I often have to check goodreads to search for books that I’ve read so that I can add them to tags … I’ve never had any problem with recommendations, tho, if I think someone I know might enjoy a book I had read, I just let them know it before I could forget haha

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      1. I hope it works out for you too! It use it mainly for my aunt, she loves contemporaries so every time I read one and I think its’ cute and all that she likes, I usually tell her about it and and I’ll probably end up lending her the book too 🙂

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  18. Happens to me all of the time! I keep a running list on the notes app in my phone so I know what I need to get. If I don’t, I’ll leave without getting a single book I went in looking for and come out with an armload of unexpected and random books.

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  21. This is the absolute worst! I hate it when someone asks me for a recommendation because my mind always goes completely blank, even though there are five million books that I adore. For some reason, in the moment, I always struggle to think of one. Why?! It’s so frustrating!

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