What I've read

 I used to read every novel by Philip Roth, John Updike, and Saul Bellow as they appeared. I would read entire books of poetry, not just poetry anthologies, in English when that was the only language I knew. I would read the collected poems, not the selected poems. When I was interested in a poet, or a particular author, I would read everything. 

I have read most of Galdós, something nobody does unless they are an expert on this author. I never finished the last series of the Episodios nacionales.  The summer before grad school, I read all the boom authors, GGM, Cortázar, Donoso... 

I would never just read what was assigned in classes. I would read all the novels of Henry Green, for example, though Henry Green was never assigned in any course where I went to school.  

At some point I lost my love of novels. I read them now to practice reading in foreign languages. I have read Elena Ferrante in Italian... I like to read Murakami in Catalan, etc... I can read in most romance languages.  

A lot of my "reading" is a practice of memorization. So it is a little different from reading prose fiction where you make linear progress but don't remember the words in your brain. I have read Basho in multiple translations and compared them. 

The sheer quantity and intensity of my reading practice explains a lot about me.  Of course, this is to be expected in a literature prof, but I still think I am not wholly typical. For example, I don't know anyone personally who has as much memorized as I do, or who reads as much in multiple languages.