Affective Dimensions of Reading

It's hard to say if I am a good reader or not because I don't want to seem biased, but I do believe I am a good reader. I mean I enjoy reading and being able to totally lose myself in a book. It makes me feel like like I am living two different stories. One story is of my current life and the other story is the one I am currently reading. I don't really have a certain genre of books that I prefer over others. All that I care about is if it has a gripping story line and a plot that I can get into quick. That is the down fall for me though, if a book doesn't catch my interest within the first or second chapter, then I stop reading it because my interest has been lost. I don't have the patience to keep reading to see if I would like the book or not. When novels were introduced as part of the curriculum, it was hard to stay focused because I didn't like to be forced to read a book I didn't choose on my own. This idea followed me all throughout my schooling years. Yes there were a handful of books that I did actually enjoy, but that list was very small.
I am the kind of person who goes through stages of liking and disliking reading and books. While I was in elementary, I loved to read. When we were able to go to the library and choose a book to read, I loved to look at all the books and see the possibilities that I could read and get lost in. As I moved into middle school, reading books was put on the back burner. I had other things to do and reading didn't fit into my life. Also, at this time, if I did want to read, I couldn't find a book that I had an interest in. This would discourage me and I wouldn't try for a long while. It wasn't until my sophomore english class that I found the appreciation for books again.
In my classroom, I want my students to have a love of reading. Reading is such an important skill and I want to convey this to my students. I plan on having all types of books in my classroom because if there was down time, students can go and pick out a book and look/read through it. Of course I will have plenty of books on my content area. For example, in an interior design class, I would have books on all types of housing features, color schemes, floor plans, principles and elements of design, etc. Another example is in a foods class. I want to have a big library of cookbooks. Cookbooks will allow the students to apply what they learn in class to making some sort of food.
Reading is different for everyone and being able to understand this will improve my classroom and my students because of the level of mutual respect we will have for one another.