3 Autumn Activities Only Booknerds Understand

It's a special time of year for booknerds and book lovers of all shapes and sizes. It's autumn and nothing enlivens the book community more than this: my favorite season of the year. (This is, of course, excluding drama of any kind.)

Cool days and colder nights, bookish marathons of epic proportions, these are the life-giving events of autumn. The cold season even allows us to pull out our Dracula and Harry Potter scarves. This is the time of year we all sit down and make our very Halloween-specific to-do lists. We get into the decorating just like any other person, but we celebrate with books and book-related movies. This isn't to say we don't celebrate with non-bookish things, but we get to take full advantage of a whole other aspect of the waking world that too many others miss out on.

1. We express our love for Harry Potter.

No one can tell me they don't at least get the urge to pop Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in just so they can see this scene. You know, the part where the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher comes screaming into the great hall in the middle of the Hogwarts feast? (He instilled a lot of confidence in his defense abilities.)

Every year I contemplate rereading a Harry Potter novel or two and find myself listening (or purchasing) a soundtrack. I now have every soundtrack except for the second one (The Chamber of Secrets). With Halloween suddenly upon us, witches and wizards and other traditional Halloween monsters are brought to the media forefront, what better way to spend your free time than to spend time at Hogwarts? It's good for the soul.

2. We get the urge to read a classic.

Just about every year since I've read the darn novel, I've contemplated rereading Dracula by Bram Stoker. I have yet to read anything else like it and am rather fond of Stoker's book. While it may not be particularly frightening, this is a monster classic that can't be ignored. Even if you haven't read the novel yet, I'm sure you've thought about it - contemplated the action.

Sometimes we just don't get to every book on our list though, which leads us to other avenues in order to fulfill this desire. Every year since I saw the movie for the first time, I have made it a tradition to watch Dracula with Bela Lugosi on the very night of Halloween. Since their release, I have also added I Am Frankenstein and Dracula Untold to my list of October movies as further tribute to the classics that inspired it all.

3. We concoct specialized reading lists.

We've all made them. Some years we get ambitious, sometimes we don't; but every booknerd out there has journeyed into the hazardous land of Halloween-book lists at some point. Of course, these all look different for each of us as our criteria for holiday novels can be as unique as the DNA strands in our bodies... Too much? You get the point though.

I'm hoping to get through a few Halloween-specific novels this month, one of which has been on my list since it's release in 2013.

How will you be celebrating Halloween and enjoying the autumn months this year?

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