How many going at a time?

OK, I wrote them down **ON PAPER** formally and ,uh, I have 8 books currently, actively being read right now that I have every intention of finishing. Nope, make that 9 books. Oops, 10.

Uh oh, that doesn't count the audiobook I'm listening to in the car......

And another half dozen that I have started and will finish because 'it will be good for me to do so'..... Hmm some of this last catagory have been sitting on the bedstand (as opposed to the TBR pile) for a year (could it be two???) now.

Resolved--get this number down to a more manageable level! I will finish the book that is my current 'major interest' book and then finish another on the already-being- read list before diving into the new one that I just mooched. I promise. Sincerely. Not kidding this time. No matter how many books that my current book mentions and makes me want to read..... No matter how much I want to just sneak in a 'quick read' fiction from my favorite author, no matter how much I want to dip just a little bit into another book on the pile.

No way.

Is there a 12 step group for this?

A few months ago I made a list of books I had recently started and had every intention of finishing: it was 17 books long! I sat down and made a reading schedule (because I love schedules!) and actually managed to plow through a good stack of books that had been laying around. Now I have my stack of 50 Books Challenge to read, and starting in the next week or so, I'll be juggling between 3 and 6 books.

There was a 12 step group, but we took a leaf out of Shelley's book and unleashed the villagers on them. :)

I've had as many as 7 books started at one time -- and finished them all. I've currently got 4 books going now -- 2 eBooks and 2 real books. When the mood strikes me, or if I know I'll be out waiting in some line somewhere, I'll just grab the nearest book to where I am, and I'm set.

My current wife is not from the area I live in; we met online. Where she's from, Rush Hour consisted of maybe 3 car queued up at the stop sign. During our courtship, one of us would drive several hours to spend the weekend at the other's house. On her first visit here, I had to do some business at the bank, and advised her to grab a book. She thought I was joking. We spent over 45 minutes in line waiting for our turn with the Teller. As a result of all that, she happily reported to her family that I was a considerate person. Now, she never leaves the house without a book. She's reading 2 different books, currently.

I think I'm pretty disciplined and restrict myself to one at a time mostly. On occasion if I'm reading something dip-in-able, I'll have two on the go, but it doesn't happen often.

I try to stick to one book at a time, but right now I've got eight going. One I started a while ago (a collection of short stories), three are sequels which I had to start in order to remember what had happened in the books preceeding them, three are for my English class at school, and one is for my school book club. Hopefully I'll finish most of them this weekend...

When I was younger and lived with my parents, I remember having an almost constant minimum of three books going at once - one up in my bedroom, one downstairs in the den, and one in my backpack to take to school. Often I would start more before I finished these. I remember talking to people who didn't understand how I could keep all the stories straight, reading all those books at once.

These days, it's usually one or two, although sometimes it shoots up - a couple of weeks ago, I was at 4 or 5 after hitting the library and the bookstore within a couple of days.

Right now, I'm in the middle of a rather dense (and long) hard science fiction book, which I have to put aside occasionally. Obviously I need to read something in the meantime, so I pick something short - recently it's been the Earthsea books, but I'm almost done with those. I also slipped in a short audiobook the other day.

Technically I do have 2 "should finish" books from last year. One I think I will set aside permenantly - I didn't like it, and even though it's short, I don't think it's worth finishing. The other I think I'll delve into again at some point.

I've got The Fight, Ajax, Lanark, TOCS, Eliot by Ackroyd and one other (title escapes me) almost finished. I've started Mr Gum and the Biscuit Billionaire, a PD James, Worst Case Scenario Extreme Edition, Fighting in Spain by Orwell and am secretly reading Amsterdam by Ian McEwan.

Lack of shelving is so pressing I'm off to Ikea to look for shelving. Lots of it.

I never have less than three, but don't like more than five. That doesn't count my Bible and commentaries which are constant reads.

I try to keep it down to one.

Well, that's a joke. Right now I'm just past the middle of Leave it to Psmith, two thirds through Moby-Dick, and almost finished with an audiobook of Right Ho, Jeeves (for knitting...alas, it seems impossible otherwise to read and knit at the same time). But there are loads of other books I've read some of and put down for a long, long time. Those don't count, because if I ever do go back to them it will be a start-over operation. Then there are also about a dozen anthologies or books of essays or short stories that I've read parts of, and various nonfiction books that aren't necessarily of the read-straight-through variety. But since that's only two real books at once, it's not so bad. Usually I have two, a fiction and a nonfiction.

I can't concentrate worth a darn so the most I can do is read one book and listen to an audio book, not at the same time. I've tried reading more than one at a time but it doesn't really work very well.

I listen to one book and read another. Usually the audiobook takes longer so it spans over a few read books and sometimes, it is the other way around.

I do do a Bible study/leadership group and listen to the Bible every morning on my way to work and each week do the other required reading outside of the Bible, so maybe for 4 would be a more accurate number.

It's been a couple weeks since I started this thread and thought I'd report my progress on my resolution to finish off some of those in my 'currently reading' pile.

I DID finish two on my original list. And then my order came from bookcloseouts and I couldn't resist dipping into one of them. And then I went to the library and bought several (uh looks like eight) from the sale shelves and started one of those, too. And then I had a short vacation and decided to take along several light fiction books instead of any of those that were started.

So the bottom line is that the number of books I haven't finished isn't going down, but hasn't gone up, either.

I amlearning about myself and my reading habits, though. I really enjoy non-fiction and self -help books. But then there comes a time when I want something just for pure entertainment and not to have to think and consider deeply what the author is saying. And that;s when I start a 'fun' book and another book joins the 'to be finished' pile even though it's a topic I'm interested in.

I'm also organizing my 'too be read pile' and have learned that sometimes I'll buy several books on a topic and then lose my fire for reading them after reading a book or two on the subject.

I'm trying to keep the 'book acquiring' under control because it's just too tempting to dip immediately into something new. Which means I also have to put less items on my 'wish list' and more on my 'save for later' list at bookmooch because I feel obligated to mooch then when they become available.

So eventually, I may get this all sorted out. And in the meantime, Library Thing and Reading Resolutions are at least making me aware of where I am spending my time reading.

I used to have this problem but I learned how to limit myself and now I simply finish one book before I allow myself to start another. I find it helps me focus more and also helps me read them a lot more quickly than I used to.

It's also helping me work my way through Mount TBR which is absolutely crazy right now.

Usually three at the most, but right now I'm at five.

For my personal reading, I used to read 3 or 4 books at a time, but they all had to be very different from each other. Then I went to one fiction and one non-fiction book. The last year or so, I've strictly kept it at one book at a time.

(When I have to read for work and school, I sometimes have to read multiple works at once.)