The W's of Reading: Are You a WEIRD Reader?

A friend of mine recently told me I read a "weird" selection of books.  Being the over thinker that I am, I've completely over analyzed that comment and been thinking about it ever since.  What makes my reading choices so weird?  Is it because I'm a "grown up" and because I teach English?  Is there some reading list that I'm expected to draw from?  Having said that, I realize that I too stereotype books in considering who I think would read them.  Honestly, I think we all do.  Does that make some of us weird if we just like a bit of everything?  Should you be able to peg someone by their career, interests, or even field of study in school?

One of my literature professors in college was this ex-football player who happened to be teaching Young Adult literature.  He one time shared with us how during his travels around the country, that when people saw him reading YA (especially what was considered "girly" YA), he would get funny looks.  I also had this experience recently when a colleague caught me reading a book and asked the title.  When I said the Fever series, he gave me an odd look. I'm sure he just hadn't heard of it before and was trying to place it, but I thought it was funny.  As a teacher, here are the books that most folks think I must like to read:

    * Shakespeare
    * Classics
    * Prize winners
    * Poetry

While I love each of these types of writing, I'm also quirky and will read just about anything.  I also know that most of my friends in graduate school were reading casually all the time, and things that people wouldn't think we'd spend our free time reading.  I remember a couple of girls chatting about the Gossip Girls series one day before class, and many of us picked up the latest Dan Brown novel when it came out.  I'm not sure that makes us weird, but more that we have a wide taste and appreciation in literature!

I've called it book "snobbery" in previous posts, but I think I might take the honored badge of a weird reader any day.  Here are some of the ways that even I would label myself as "weird" when it comes to reading:

• I'll pick a book up at the library, just because it has a girly, pretty cover.  (Yes, I'm owning it.)
• If I like an author, I'll read every book they've ever written, even if there's a bad one in the bunch (which there usually is).
• I might be an adult, but I still like a good teen or children's read, and not because I might recommend it to a student!
• I like chick lit, nonfiction, and Nobel Prize winners, all in the same rotation of books I'm currently reading.
• I hardly ever read a crime or mystery novel, and usually only if someone has begged me to read it.  That's just me.  (I think I just must not have enough patience for the story to unfold!)
• Sometimes a good romance just fits the bill.  I might be skeptical and snarky about love in real life, but a good love story can be the perfect get away from the real world!
• Although I love ethnic literature, I'm a complete Anglophile and find myself reading all types of Regency and Victorian novels.

This is just a small list of things that I have noticed might get me labeled in that weird reader category.  The heart wants what the heart wants, and if it's a wide, strange variety, then maybe that really is weird.

What say you?  Are you a weird reader as well?  Has anyone ever said you have weird or eclectic tastes in reading material?