Concerns about aliterate undergraduates who seem marginally interested in academic reading and uninterested in wider reading are often blamed on their low levels of reading motivation. The proliferation of computer and internet-based resources seems also to have negatively reshaped the undergraduate reading experience. While large survey studies may point to this worrying trend, in-depth studies may be useful in explaining this phenomenon. My empirical in-depth study aimed to investigate the complexities behind multilingual undergraduates' academic and non-academic reading experiences across their past and current contexts. In order to achieve this aim, I examined the literate lives of a purposively selected group of eight multilingual Malaysian undergraduates in a British university. The eight participants are female and male, first to final year undergraduates pursuing degrees in the disciplines of Engineering, Mathematics, Law and Economics respectively. I drew mainly on a transactional theory of reading for how it acknowledges the complexities of every individual reading event. This study was methodologically designed from a constructionist epistemological stance with a phenomenologically-informed theoretical perspective. Thrice across a time-span of between four to ten months, each participant was interviewed about their past and current reading experiences. All participants were also asked to keep a reading diary for a total of eight weeks. From the data, the embodied reading experience emerged. My in-depth examination suggested that beyond simply responding to linear levels of reading motivation, the undergraduates were continuously framing and re-framing their reading choices within and across various domains. It was the continuous negotiation of choicemaking that showed how the reading experience could be critically shaped in relation to the reader's social, cultural and historical contexts.