Once, when I was in middle school, a classmate challenged me to a fight. I’d just finished reading Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights so it seemed entirely natural and just to respond to the threat in the manner that Heathcliff once famously responded to Edgar Linton:

　　有一次，当我还上中学的时候，一个同学要跟我决斗。我刚刚读完了艾米丽勃朗特的呼啸山庄，所以很自然地用希刺克厉夫曾经回应埃德加林顿的著名方式回应了他:

　　“I am mortally sorry you are not worth knocking down.”

　　“非常抱歉，但你不值得让我打倒。”

　　This probably explains my lack of popularity in school.

　　这可能解释了为什么我在学校中不太受欢迎。

　　2.You name your pets after literary characters你用文学作品中的人物给你的宠物命名

　　I once agreed to go on a date with a man purely on the attraction that he had a cat named Sherlock. This seemed an entirely logical basis for a lifetime of love, and I remain convinced that had I owned a cat named John, this man would be the father of my children today.

　　我曾经同意与一个男人交往，纯粹是因为被他有一只猫名叫夏洛克的猫所吸引。这似乎是一个完全符合逻辑基础的爱情，我仍然相信，假如我拥有一只叫约翰的猫，那这个人如今将是我的孩子的父亲。

　　3.You’re everyone’s resource for book recommendations每个人都会让你推荐书籍

　　A few years ago, a friend preparing for vacation called to ask me for book recommendations he could read on the plane. I replied via text and heard nothing for three days. Just when I’d begun to think I might have accidentally killed him, he called back. “Thanks,” he said. “But I told you I’m going on vacation for two weeks, right? Not to spend an eternity in purgatory.” I mumbled something about variety and then quickly ended the call on the pretense of having to walk the dog.

　　几年前，一位在为度假准备的朋友打电话来问我能在飞机上读些什么书。我通过短信回复了他，然后三天没听到回音。就在我开始想我可能不小心杀死他时，他就回了电话。“谢谢，”他说。“但是我告诉过你，我要去假期2个星期，对吗？不应在炼狱中度过永恒。”我咕哝着，然后很快以要去遛狗的幌子挂掉了电话。

　　4.You consider it a deal-breaker if your date doesn’t read如果你的约会对象不读书的话，你会感觉无法交流People fall back on the “read any good books lately” question as a cliché conversation starter, but we really need to learn to harness the power of this relationship Litmus test. Dating a book nerd is serious business, and only a fellow bibliophile can keep pace with the obscure Jane Austen references or the conversation sprinkled with the witticism of Oscar Wilde.

　　人们用“最近读过什么好书吗”的问题作为一个老生常谈的对话开始，但我们真的需要学习如何利用这种关系试金石的力量。和一个书呆子约会是严肃的事情，只有一个藏书家才能听懂晦涩的简奥斯丁引语或与奥斯卡·王尔德的俏皮话并驾齐驱。

　　5.You’ve had crushes on literary characters你已经迷恋上了文学人物

　　Three words: Edward Fairfax Rochester. I read Jane Eyre when I was 12. Nothing seemed more romantic than a dark, brooding hero with a richly furnished mansion and a mysterious secret. Okay, so there was that tiny problem of keeping his wife locked in the attic, but a girl can make a mistake. Live and learn, and next time, choose your heroes more wisely.

　　三个字：爱德华菲尔法科·罗切斯特。当我12岁的时候，我读了<<简·爱>>。似乎没有什么比一个有着陈设豪华的豪宅和一个神秘的秘密地阴郁、忧伤的英雄更浪漫的了。好吧，把妻子锁在阁楼里是个小问题，人都会犯错。生活，学习，下一次，更明智地选择你的英雄。

　　6.You’re everyone’s official grammar checker每个人都会让你检查正式的语法

　　About once a week, someone asks me when and when not to use a semicolon or the difference between a run-on and a fused sentence. (They’re one and the same, by the way. You know, because you asked). It might seem tedious, but the people who make a living as professional editors probably aren’t complaining.

　　每周一次，都会有人问我什么时候使用什么时候不使用分号或不间断句子和融合的句子之间的差异。（顺便说一句，它们是一样的。你知道，因为你问的。）这看起来很乏味，但那些以作为专业编辑谋生的人可能不会抱怨。

　　7.You feel you’re doing things backwards if you don’t read a book before watching its film adaptation如果你没有在看一本书的改编电影前看这本书，你会觉得你在倒着做事情。

　　There is a natural order to things, and reading the book before seeing the movie is a cardinal rule of book nerds everywhere. Literary adaptations, when handled well, are often brilliant, masterful works of art in and of themselves, but some familiarity with the original story can lend greater enjoyment to the viewing experience. Not to mention, it creates fertile ground for debating such questions as the overwhelmingly unnerving presence of all of those shrunken heads in the adaptation of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

　　对于事物来说，有着天然的顺序，在看改编电影前先看书是任何地方的书呆子的一条准则。文学改编，如果处理得好，往往是是书籍的艺术再现和改进，但熟悉一些原来的故事可以带来更大的观看体验享受。更何况，它给像是在哈利波特与阿兹卡班的囚徒的改编中让人非常不安的皱缩的头这样的问题提供了肥沃的土地。

　　8.You’ve christened your house or apartment after a famous fictional residence你用一处著名的虚构住宅来命名你的放假或寓所I may or may not affectionately refer to my apartment as “Little Pemberley.” Perhaps it doesn’t quite measure up to the size and splendor of an estate in Derbyshire complete with Mr. Darcy, but imagination can work wonders.

　　我可能会亲切地称我为“小彭伯里公寓。“也许它还达不到在达西先生在德比郡完成的地产的规模和辉煌，但是想象可以创造奇迹。

　　9.You own multiple editions of your favorite books你拥有你最爱书籍的多种版本

　　Hardcover, paperback, annotated, anniversary – name it, you own it. Critical editions are your guilty pleasure with their moderately tangential footnotes and reproductions of original manuscripts in the author’s handwriting. Don’t judge.

　　精装、平装、注释版、纪念版–给它命名，你拥有它。最重要的版本是你欣喜于有着适度注释的版本以及作者手写的原始稿件的复制版本。不要以貌取书。

　　10.You occasionally have a panic attack about dying before finishing a book、在读完一本书之前，你可能会有一种关于死的惊恐感I generally make it known that I want to be buried with a book, probably Charles Dickens’s Bleak House because I’m going to need something to pass the time in purgatory. This is irrelevant, however, because I’m convinced that if I continue adding books to my “must read” list, I’m never going to die.

　　我经常想到要和一本书一起埋葬，可能是查尔斯狄更斯的凄凉的房子，因为我需要在炼狱中读些东西来打发时间。然而，这无关紧要，因为我相信，如果我一直想我的“必读书籍”名单添加书籍的话，我就永远不会死。