Bibiliophiles are people who love to collect books, while bookworms are people who read books and spend a lot of time reading. Which one are you?
Neither?
But i bet a lot of people whoever accidentally comes across a book as their "perfect match", or whoever "stumbles" upon a book by "fate", or whoever were forced at first, due to school requirements, and later on learned to love it, would have this insurmountable sense of wanting to finish the book but don't want the book to finish. Does it sound complicated? If not, then, we experienced the same "book-hook-up". I made this term myself.
At first stage, we have a book encounter---by fate, accident, etc. We are in a world where Literature evolved simultaneously with humans, and where both were mutated by beliefs and disbeliefs, forefathers and descendants, culture and wars, moralism and didactics, emergence and recognition, diversity and reexaminations, colonization and freedom. Later on by next stage, we are split into making decisions whether to read the book or ignore it, to flip among the pages or skip randomly, to read between the lines or scan with apathy. However, we are influenced by some crucial factors, such as the book cover, the thickness of book, the author (for some), the texture of its leaves and backbone (for rarely some), and, of course, the book teaser which we find at the book cover.
Even if there is a Decision-making stage, we still end up opening the book due to our indomitable curiosity. Yes, Experimentation is the second-to-the-last stage. This is where we start with the author's remarks, or the Prologue, or, just ricochet over these and go straight to the first page of Chapter I. To analyze, it is more likely to say that we do the Decision-making as we go along the plot. And when we have reached the ending, we recognize whether the book is an obra maestro or not, basing from our own standards. Some readers, even days after completion of the book, have not gotten over story---maybe, too impressed, disappointed or discontented. That is because a lot of authors leave the readers thirsting for more, or leaving them a question to answer by themselves. And only a few reach the last stage--- Integration/Assimilation.
The skills to writing is not an inborn, predestined or genetically-determined talent. Writing is practiced, molded and inspired. As a reader approaches the ending of a plot, he is already formulating or predicting the conclusion in his mind... Patching events... Making hypothesis... Debating within himself... And when he is left unsatisfied about the ending, whether there is Dramatic Irony or Irony of Situation, he makes a move--- a sequel, the post-conventional and final stage.
Take for example the work of Amador Daguio, The Wedding Dance. This story, for analysts, is a composition full of symbols that even up to this day leaves them and the readers perplexed what the author really meant in his mind. The story itself reveals a depth of the sad, covert matter about fertility, women, family and marriage of Igorot tribes.
So now that I reached the "transcendence" stage of reading, i present to you my book teaser of my personal sequel to The Wedding Dance, entitled "The Carnal Figment"
"Kabunyan seemed to have heard Lumnay's coverted wish that night without having her to open her eyes to a new, unused, painful day. Putting her own heart to suicide, she gave one ceremonial dance with respect to the wedding of his husband to a new wife, and immediately left with a heavy heart to return back to her parents' abode. A longing heart, a realization to correct directions between fighting for dignity or fighting for love, Awiyao caught her in his arms before she could even fall unconscious to the misty ground covered with beanpods and gagat-tangs.
A promise of returning stirred back Lumnay's advertency... A news of finally bearing a child made her clung strongly to his promise... Until a a foreseen catastrophe hit their mountainous village--- would Lumnay choose to stay in an ethereal dimension where her only world, Awiyao, exists, or, open her eyes to reality that Awiyao is just and forever will only be a pigment of her mind? After waking up to the peeping warmth of sunlight which felt like new to her in countless years, Lumnay is falling in love for the second time to the same smile she once owned and lost."
El Fin.