Do you read more than one book at a time?

Hi everybody, where have you been? Are you reading so much you have no time to post messages? What are you reading...I have been working on Foreigner slowly, slowly, but it finally has caught my attention. I have also been working my way thru the NY Times on my Kindle; it also gives me Time magazine. That is a lot to read everyday. What are you doing?

Answering the topic question. Do I read more than one book at a time? The answer is yes and that's where I've been, reading and cataloging my library. Great project for February

Since I've become way over 60, I don't do the multiple books thing, maybe an overlap between fiction & non-fiction & also short story collections when what I'm reading is a little slow-going. There is also magazines & TV & the internet that compete with reading time.

I try not to, but I always seem not to be able to finish one book before I am compelled to start another.

*she says as she tries to juggle three books at the same time*

I just finished a fiction re-read and I have two (very different) nonfiction and one fiction book in progress. There are the upstairs books and the downstairs books...

that's great - the upstairs and the downstairs. I've got the in the living room and in the bedroom books.

I usually have multiple books going. The living room book, the bedroom book, the purse book (if the living room book is too big to fit in the purse). The bedroom book is usually a non-fiction book, I'll read a little before I go to sleep. The living room book is my fiction book - I go through a lot more of those.

And then of course there's the audio books for when I'm knitting and when I go to sleep. I have terrible tinnitis and can't sleep unless I'm listening to my iPod and an audio book.

katylit - I have thought about listening to my iPod while drifting off to sleep but do you get tangled in the cords. Where do the ear buds and the iPod end up in the morning? Thanks for giving me some tips!

katylit and maggie1944> Among other reasons for my being single is that I like to have something to listen to falling asleep, although I am as happy with rainfall as with classical music in my old age.

In the past few months, armed with a coupon, I bought a CD rendition of the Bible that I haven't cracked open yet. I thought about playing one of the CD's after I turn the lights out at night, but I wondered whether I would tune it out mentally in order to get to sleep (as a single person, I can use a speaker rather than earphones or a pillow speaker).

My tinnitis doesn't bother me except that I would like from time to time to listen to nothing by hearing nothing.

I think I started this post in hopes of getting more information about the hypnagogic literary experience, but I am finishing it with a determination to give it a try.

Thank you for bringing it up.

Robert

I listen to NPR or whatever is on the public station: BBC late at night, etc. I turn it on for 59 minutes when I turn the light off; then, when I wake because it is so quiet I hit the sleep button for another 59 minutes. I usually do that for 2-3 hours after I turn the light off and then by about 1 am I am good and asleep. Usually wake up between 6 and 7 am because the heat comes on and the dogs are waiting (impatiently, but politely) for breakfast. Greta Garbo reached out with one paw this morning and ever so gently patted me on the arm.... Hey, get up, already!

I like BBC in the middle of the night.

I must admit I have splurged and gotten sort of expensive earbuds (like these http://www.amazon.com/JVC-HAFX66-Air-Cushion-Earbud-Headphones/dp/B000WH83AA/ref... that fit snugly in my ears so they don't hurt when I'm lying down. And I tuck my iPod just under the edge of my pillow in-between the pillow and pillowcase. Everything seems to be fine and I tend to toss and turn a lot in the night. Sometimes one of the earbuds comes out in the night. But the iPod stays put and I don't get tangled up in the earbud cord. I must admit I have to get new earbuds about once a year 'cause they tend to wear out. But I love having someone read me to sleep :-)

When my husband's away I have CDs and cassettes that I play on my clock radio/player and don't bother with earphones at all - or I listen to the BBC or CBC in the middle of the night too - I love listening to it too.

I am reading three books at once but since they are all books on computer technology do they really count? I can't seem to get back to fiction or history or poetry.

It is getting more dificult to read more than on book at a time, tho I try to have a short story or essay collection going with my "big" read. I try to balance fiction with non-fiction & sometimes they overlap. In my younger days, I would have several books going along with magazines. Now the magazines are piling up. When the weather is nice I like to look at a magazine while sitting on the porch, but there are too many distractions to read a book outside.

I do read more than one book at a time, but I find that I much prefer savoring just one book at a time. My problem is that I listen to audio-books while I commute to work and don't often find a hard copy of the same book to which I'm listening at the same time.

When I start a book it's like a marriage; if I really can't go on with it, we divorce. I don't, however, believe in fooling around while still married, i.e. I'm a one book gal!

I've never been able to read more than one book at a time, but I often have several books going over the same period of time.

Magazines pile up~~~~oh yes they do! So I pick up a book or magazine when there's reading time, and I often have several books (+/or magazines) "in progress." One exception is if I have an Eary Reviewer book in hand. It gets priority until the review is done. (I never read in bed. That was a no-no when I was growing up.)

Since my teens I've always read multiple books, in fact if I don't have at least three or four on the go I begin to feel deprived. People often ask me how I can read several books at once, to which I reply that it's like watching five or six TV programmmes per night - you don't forget the plot of your favourite soaps or thriller series on TV, so why would you forget what is happening in several different books?

I used to read several books at a time when I was younger. Then for a while all I could keep track of was one book at a time--especially when we were taking care of elderly parents on both sides of the family and up an down the state. But lately (especially since I joined LT) I find I can keep 2 0r 3 going at once. Right now I'm reading Poisonwood Bible for the LT group read, How to Read Novels Like a Professor so I can discuss more intelligently, Brain Rules to try to keep my brain working properly, and Red Bird, a book of poetry to read just before I go to sleep.

While well into Irvin D. Yalom's Existential Psychiatry (I had just finished "Part I, Death"), I bought a copy of his Mamma and the Meaning of Life (more autobiographical, citing case studies Yalom is a professor of psychiatry at Stanford) and have, just now, finished reading that, which has aided me tremendously in understanding his Existential Psychiatry.

It's the holiday season - time to relax. Just finished (& enjoyed) Fannie Flagg's A redbird Christmas Also have a few poetry books going on the side.

It depends. Right now, I'm in a place where none of the books I have started have really grabbed me (which makes me believe it's me and not the books), so I guess you could say I'm reading 5-6 books, hoping one will suck me in soon. If I am really enthralled by a book, I tend to stick with only that one.

Unlike hinsdaledog (#15), I guess I'm pretty promiscuous in my reading habits.

Hm. Several aof you have indicated you read several books at a time in your youth, but now you do not. My story is the opposite. At 65, I have a different book in each room of the house. In the eatl-in nook is my book -- In the Rooms (the life story of a recovered alcoholic), which I am re-reading in a new leather edition; in the main bath is bertrand russell's book of essays Why I am Not a Christian; in the rear bath in the Matris edition of the New Testament; by my bedside is a collection of 1950s science fiction edited by the late isaac asimove (wasn't everyhthing edited by him in that decade?), and coming up next is Loon,a Marine story I must review for random house.

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I usually read more than one book at a time, but last week I had the good fortune to be able to read Loon: A Marine Story (won in the LT Early Reviewers program) with no other books hovering! I hope you like that book by Jack McLean as much as I did. I thought it was excellent.

I confess I usually have book marks in more than one book, and a few magazines, at any given time. I read only paperback books when I am in the bath tub and I read in my Kindle when I am in bed. But usually one of the books finally gets its hooks firmly embedded and that is the book I drag around with me from sofa, to bed, to car, to waiting rooms, and back again until I finish it. So in my heart of hearts I read one book at a time, while the others wait, holding their bookmarks firmly between some pages.

I am having a minor crisis in reading right now. I can't seem to find any enthusiasm for the science fiction I usually read. I just spent a good part of the day reading an online excerpt from Jay Stevens' Storming Heaven which is non-fiction.

So now I am searching for something to read. I will probably try downloading some non-fiction to my Kindle.

Hey, xenchu ~ Hope you've come out of your reading funk by now. I hate going through them but thankfully they usually don't last too long.

>24 andyray: I wish I had only one book in every room. I have bought so many that I'm afraid my time's going to run out before all the books do (actually, I know that's going to happen), so I enjoy reading 5 or so actively and have a start and bookmarks in at least 5 more. I don't even want to change.

I am reminded of the saying--so many books, so little time. At least we can read our own choices now. Susan Glaspell is my current hero. I am struggling with her biography written by Linda Ben-zvi. She did a lot of research to mold this book, but it is slow reading. Are any of you familiar with Glaspell`s story A Jury of Her Peers? I read this years ago and never forgot it. She was one of the original Provincetown players.A book of short stories by Robert Morgan is also ongoing with me.

Hello everyone.
I always have at least three books going at the same time. One for a group read. (seems there is always one of those going on) One for me and then my "tweener". That one is always poetry, essays, a book of short stories, etc; something of that type and it sits on my bedside table. If my current read gets too dark or disturbs my psyche, I put it down for a bit and pick up the "tweener". But I only read it in snippets and only at bedtime. My psyche seems to be more easily disturbed at nightfall and we do not want any anxiety or panic attacks before sleep. That just is not good.

With at least two books a month arriving, I usually start reading one of them right away, put it aside, go to another "aside", etc., etc. Maybe as many as five books going at once. Then, there are stacks of books on the floor waiting for empty shelf space. Alack!

I read one book at a time alternating between several books. :)

Miz Chu;
Now that is a contradiction in terms if I may say so. You read one at a time alternating between several books. To my teeny tiny pea brained mind, that is reading several books at a time.
What do the rest of you think? Hmmmmm???
hugs n stuffs,
belva

Only one of the books? The other four that i also meant to read, but also started, sit sulking.

I have diplopia. I've been hopeful that when it becomes severe enough I'll be able to read two books at one time. Until then it is one at a time, but I usually choose from among several.

Robert

Five dust covers, ten introductions, and one book a week.

I would stand the question on its head and ask "Do you ever read JUST one book at a time/ʻ

Answer: Sure, I must have done that, at one time or another, but I canʻt think just when that was.

Pursuit of foot-note references connects me to Google so often, that the "one book" is sometimes "grafted" to several.

Yes, but I never double up on novels. At any one times I may be alternating between a novel, one or two books of short stories, a history. a biography, etc., etc.,

I just noticed this thread is over two years old. Still ... an interesting inquiry.

Yes. I am on page 51 of The Widow of the south page 30 of Malinche and skipping aroound various chapters of Marilynne Robinson's When I was a child, I Read Books
All of them are proving to be interesting, but the CW book is, well heavy going, Malinche is interesting I will probably finish it in a day or 2.. I usually have several books going at once, but there are some I don't finish.

I have a car book, a bed book, a couch book, a rocking chair book. Somehow it all works.

The bedtime book is always a re-read, so I'm not sure that counts.

#43 Of course it counts!! (Nowadays I re-read more often than I virgin-read.)

My passed practice was to read only one book at a time. But with the Kindle I find I an reading it as well as a book. I am not quiet sure how this started, perhaps it needed to be charged, although I try to do that over night. When I can't settle on what I will read next I often start reading the beginnings of a number of books.

> 44. I reread a lot but I never thought of calling my new reads as virgin-reads. I like it. Where did the term come from? Do you watch "Property Virgins" on HGTV?

Katylit, yep, sounds like me. At least one open book in every room in my house, on top of a deep pile. Not to mention the dozen under the seat of my car!

Asking me the title question is like asking W. C. Fields if he ever took more than one drink in a day.
I had a friend who said that
he was incapable of reading at all at a time when he had only one book in his possession. There always had to be at least one backup. What if he didnʻt like the one book? I havenʻt reached that stage of multiplicity. I think I (and most readers?) would grudgingly plow on with the one book.

I usually have more than one book on the go. I like to have a mystery, a report of a personal adventure and a non-fiction with science/social science focus. Usually, I'll be reading one on the Kindle( lives bedside), one on Kobo app for the Galaxy Tab( travels in briefcase) and something in print ( sits by my reading chair).

I do. The usual number is six.

There's the primary bedtime book, the one I'll read after midnight every night for an hour or so until I finish it. That's typically a novel, but not always; right now it's an offbeat work of literary theory.

There's also usually a principal book on the coffee table for daytime and evening interludes on the sofa, along with several other incidental volumes.

The others proceed at different paces, ranging from, say, 20 pages every few days to a nibble once in a while. Some of those are nibbled at because I can't take too much at one time, and some will eventually attrite because I'm just not interested enough. A heavy history tome recently fell by the wayside after about three months, and I took it off my "Currently Reading" list. Others I'll just plug away at a little at a time until I finish them.

Hardly ever is my sofa reading the same as my bedtime reading. The exception is when I get down to the final pages of my nighttime book and I just can't wait another night to finish it.

In waiting rooms I usually look at the magazines. That's about my only exposure to popular culcha.

I used to read several books at a time, but with age, and some medication issues, I find I can only handle two or three, tops at a time, unless they are wildly different.

I only read one at a time. If I think of something else to read (I generally have three or four in a soft lineup waiting) it provides an incentive to finish the current read. Because the books I read are all of interest to me I can't tell you the last time I had a clinker I just couldn't finish. Currently reading LOA edition of THE PROUD TOWER by Barbara Tuchman to be followed by her GUNS OF AUGUST, both books I read years ago, then Scott's ROB ROY, followed by something by either Dickens or Henry James, then more Scott. Scott is an ongoing completist project.

I apologize for not using touchstones. I'm using my tablet to key this and while it has £ and € and ¥ it doesn't have brackets. I may be able to load an alternate keyboard, but I haven't checked.

I sort of read one book at a time. By that, I mean I have a main read, but I may read bits of poetry or a non-fiction book that is easy to just pick up and read a bit whenever. For instance, right now my main read is The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton and my non-fiction pickup whenever book is My Garden and I by Olive Pitkin. And magazines interspersed in it all.

#51. I also rarely read a clinker. The last one was The Dressmaker by Kate Alcott. Seemed to have all the elements for an absorbing read, The Titanic, a bit of a mystery, but alas, no. I found it amateurish and tedious and gave it up. But since most of the books I read come from the library, no loss. I only buy books I love already or older, quaint or children's books.

I usually have two on-the-go at the same time, one is usually a favoured re-reading (currently the sway of the grand saloon) and a new one from the TBR pile (Paul's "swansong" last train to zona verde).

I also found your use of clinker interesting ... as in burnt coke, and therefore useless? I use clunker as clinker has an entirely different reference in UK slang ... unless to do with boats of course!