I absolutely, positively hate it when someone interrupts my reading. I know that they don’t mean to be rude, or annoy me… (most of the time!) But really, it feels as irritating as someone going “Hey, do you want to see a picture of my dog?” while you’re in the middle of a sentence. Like, really? Is a picture of a dog more important than what I was just saying? I know it’s really not the same; after all, interrupting someone while they’re talking shows lack of patience, and it’s just rude. It shows the person you weren’t paying attention, and it can hurt one’s feelings.

But if someone interrupts me while I’m reading, and it’s completely obvious that I have a book in front of my face, I just want to yell, “Umm, excuse me while I vent on you here, but does it look like I’m doing nothing when I’m reading? Did you seriously just disturb my wonderful, oh-so-wonderful bliss?” Ugh. It really… irks me. 😀

Now. It does not always irk me so much, because there is a such thing as polite book interrupters. They tap me on the shoulder, plaster a smile on their face, ask me how my book is. I smile back and say “Good,” and then, “It’s about this girl who travels back in time,” and they say “Oh, really. That reminds me…” and somehow find a way to connect it to what they were going to say. Or they don’t connect it. They just act interested and say they’ll read it sometime soon, and then move onto talking about their dogs. But people, it’s just not nice to interrupt a reader right away.  Didn’t your mothers ever teach you manners?!

So, how do you deal with people interrupting your reading?