You know you're a Bibliomaniac when. . .

. . .You spend hours on Library Thing, keeping your own personal library catalogue in order, and adding countless trivial facts to the "common knowledge" section of each book.

. . .Whenever one of your siblings needs to find information on any given topic for a [home]school project, you rush to their aid, digging up dozens of books and searching through various encyclopedia indices. "This book all about ___, and this book has a chapter about ___. This one is a novel based on the life of ___, and there's an article about ___ in this encyclopedia. You could also try this book, and this one, and this one. . . "

. . .You are actively involved on book-swapping websites such as BookMooch, swapping second-hand books with people from all over the world.

. . .You are constantly begging your parents to buy another bookcase. - Upon being told that there isn't enough room in the house for a new bookcase, you walk all over the house, searching desperately for a suitable place, taking little heed of how inconvenient or in-the-way certain locations may be.

. . .The only thing you really want for your birthday is "books".

. . .You spend most of your allowance on new books.

. . .You howl with indignation upon discovering that there won't be any bookshops in the new shopping centre in town.

. . .You weep when your favourite bookshop in town closes down. (However, you don't hesitate to take full advantage of the closing down sales.)

. . .Your favourite place in the world (apart from home) is the local public library.

. . .The last thing you do before going to sleep is read a book.

. . .The first thing you do when you wake in the morning is read a book.

. . .You sleep with half-a-dozen books on your top bunk, so that you don't have to climb down to get a book to read when you wake up in the morning. You pay little attention to the fact that books are rather hard, uncomfortable things to have in one's bed. You have one side of the bed, the books have the other, and that's that.

. . .You treat all books with reverence, and loudly protest whenever one of your siblings treats a book roughly (e.g. dropping a book on the floor, using it as a missile, sitting on it, walking on it, etc.).

. . .You have an inexplicable love of the smell of books, which some members of your family find strange or difficult to understand.

. . .You could recognise almost any one of your books whilst blindfolded, simply by the smell of its pages.

. . .You are constantly giving unrequested book recommendations to friends and family, e.g. "You really need to read this book," or "What?! You haven't read ___?! I'll lend it to you; but make sure you read it!" or "Well, if you liked ___, you'll really like ___, and ___, and ___, and. . . ".

. . .You waste hours online browsing through online bookstores and other book websites.

. . .90% of your favourite movies and TV shows are adaptations of your favourite books.

. . .You have nightmares in which you see someone ruthlessly cutting up books with a pair of scissors.

. . .You spend hours trying to persuade your teenage brother to read The Lord of the Rings.

. . .Whenever you see one of your family members sitting idle with nothing to do, you pounce: "Let me find you a book to read! How about this one, or this one, or this one. . . "

. . .When buying a new handbag, the first thing you check for is "whether it's big enough to fit a book or two".

. . .When visiting,  you almost always find yourself next to your hosts' bookshelf, browsing through their books. You can't always explain how this happens; it just. . . happens.

. . . When preparing to travel overseas (or just anywhere, for that matter), you fill half of your bag with books. Nevermind the fact that you probably won't get time to read anything, you simply feel that it is important, nay, imperative, to have books with you at all times.

. . .You spend hours tidying and organising all the bookshelves in the house, sorting books by height, category, age-appropriateness, and author.

. . .You will happily sit for half an hour or more, poring through your family's massive Oxford English Dictionary. "So many beautiful words. . . "

. . .You are constantly acquiring old National Geographics from op-shops and and library sales, much to your mother's dismay. "Sweetheart, it's fine with me if you buy them, but where are you going to put them all??"

. . .You read books at somewhat unusual times and under unusual circumstances - whilst eating breakfast, or sitting on the toilet, or while you're cooking dinner. . . you would read whilst in the shower, if books were waterproof.

. . .You frequently borrow a book from the library or a friend, only to find that you love said book so much, you simply must buy a copy of your own to keep for always.

. . .You host a girls-only book club at your house once a month, where you do nothing but sit and talk for hours on end about books.

. . .You write blog posts like this one, in which you elaborate on your love of BOOKS.

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Note: practically all of the above are bona fide confessions of a bona fide bookworm. There has been very little exaggeration or fiction in this post.

Note 2: I am not technically a bibliomaniac. Bibliomania is, according to Wikipedia, an obsessive-compulsive disorder involving the collecting of books to the point where social relations or health are damaged, and in which the mere fact that an object is a book is sufficient for it to be collected or loved. Stricly speaking, I am merely a bibliophile or a bookworm, not a bibliomaniac.