*New thing! From time to time, I’ll post a “thread” a.k.a. something like this. Replies and conversation encouraged.
I tend to start one book, then another, and then another, reading (at most) three books at any given time. My fiancé, on the other hand, reads one book at time.
If you ask her, she’s doing it right and I’m weird and disorganized. But I don’t know. I like jumping between stories and genres.
Do you generally read one book at a time, or multiple? Why? 📚
I generally read a TON of books at a time, over ten. I think I just have trouble abandoning books, so when I slow down with one, instead of being honest with myself it enters "book purgatory." Every few years I DO finish a book in book purgatory though, so it's ambivalent to the extreme.
I don't regret this way of reading though and have always had it. It makes travelling difficult because I tend to pack ~6 books, when I don't even have the intention of finishing any :-)
I think at the bare minimum I'm actively reading one book of non fiction and one of poetry and one of fiction. I don't think these kinds of books can replace one another in any way, they are different mind spaces and I can't stand not having anything to read when I want a fictional escape, or to be informed, etc. Hope that makes sense!
Curious how others read and whether they'd defend it :-)
I remember I started reading the Cliffton Chronicles by Jeffery Archer. I got to the end of the second book in the series, and the story took place in the 1920s (I think), when the hero comes into New York and ends up getting arrested and they read him his Miranda rights. That didn't come into law until the 1960s. I didn't pick up the next book in the series. That ever happen, when you find a mistake so glaringly bad, you can't let yourself carry on?
We must be related Matt! When I read paper books I read several at one time depending on how I felt. Now that I listen to audio books I usually listen to one at a time, but occasionally I listen to two when the sleep timer isn't working on Audible. I like to go to bed listening then fall asleep but I have to be able to count on the timer to work.
One book at a time if I'm hooked. Multiple books at a time if I'm moderately interested in it at the time. Sometimes I need to book the moderately interesting book to the side and pick it up later when my mood or life changes and then it becomes my solo book.
Same, 3 as a minimum, for different times of the day and different mind states - fiction for before bed because anything else either gets my brain overactive or my brain is incapable of processing; philosophical in the morning to focus and contemplate during meditation, and then another non-fiction that's likely related to whatever it is that's interesting me at the time. And then there's the audiobooks. And possibly a bank of articles and newsletters I've saved up. It's a lot, and I do sometimes question the value/pitfalls of my methods, whether the over-consumption overfills rather than fuels me. But I know that it works (or is it a habit that's hard to break?). Ditto, my partner immerses himself in one at a time and mocks me for being a poindexter. Frankly, I'll take that label!
Liked the honesty, I feel we should do what we want if you don't want to read that's ok but we have to not want because of our laziness and procrastination and continue if we see the benefits
I'm same as you. Although I only generally read one novel at a time (sometimes two), I'm always dipping in and out of others.
For example, currently reading collections of short stories by Dostoevsky, Sartre, and Bernard Mamamud. Also reading New Europe by Michael Palin. A book on the language policies in the ex-Yugoslav republics, which I don't think would interest anyone but me! A book by a teenager forced to defend Berlin in the dying days of the Third Reich. And still trying to find a novel I can get into, since finishing one a few days ago.
I do both, which at first sounds like a paradox, but really what happens is this: I pick up several that I start and sometimes float between. These are often non-fiction,with one fiction in circulation. Then, I will reach a place in one of those books that captures me more than the others and I will then read that one till complete. Usually it’s the fiction one, though not always. I have started Michener’s The Source two months ago and read several books since that one. It is a 1,000 pages, after all.
I don’t think there’s a wrong or a right way, just a preference or what suits you. Some people are not able to follow more than one plot-line or hold different learning topics and thus need to read one book at a time. I wonder how your girlfriend, and people like her, managed in school, where one had to read multiple books at a time? (Well, in my day…I’m 44, maybe they don’t do that anymore, or only in college?).
Sep 19, 2022·edited Sep 19, 2022Liked by Matt Zamudio
I’ve been trying to practice radical freedom with my reading lately. If I want to start another book while I’m in the middle of one already, go for it. If I want to put a book in the graveyard even though I’m a third of the way in, okay no problem.
I’m also wildly inconsistent with reading. One month, 5-6 books, another month, one-third of two books and another in the graveyard!
Radical freedom reading is not for everyone. What I will say though, is that the books that come into my life that I finish, they’re all top 10% to me. Maybe I’m allowing more magic in rather than controlling my consumption.
Frankly, I have never ever read multiple books at the same time. Not because I have something against but simply because the thought of starting other books while I’m already reading one has never occurred to me. If I fall in love with a book I want to finish it reading real quick because I’m impatient that way. I just have to know what’s going on and how’s it going to end.
Also, I used to be like your fiancé- not abandoning a book (especially if it’s from a author I like) because ITS A BOOK. How can you abandon a book? But not anymore. Now, if I don’t connect with the book in first few pages I stop reading it.
I have a question of my own, if I may? Do you and others here have book goals? Like I will finish reading 3 books in a month. That type of thing. Because I don’t.
So interesting! I’m exactly like your fiancée and my husband is exactly like you! We both suspect gender might play in a role in this behavior - he thinks the ancient hunter instinct is driving men to read multiple books at a time (I don’t know? Like the equivalent of catching multiple prays?). Either way, I’m always fascinated that he can read 4-5 books at a time. Like how does he (and you and all the multi-book readers!) keep track of the story threads? Do characters ever get swapped out? I think he likes having different books for different moods and times. Honestly for me it would create too much confusion. I like to read one book at a time because I like to be fully absorbed in one story, immerse myself in one world and get intimate with those characters. I also have a (I think bad) habit of not being able to NOT finish a book. Even when it’s not great. It’s like I made a pact and I got to get to the end.
I struggle with reading more than one book a time. I have to read one at a time or I’ll get lost. However, it isn’t the same with blogs, articles, courses and others… I read all day long, in different devices and about different topics
I guess for me it’s a matter of internalizing what I’m reading - If I care to internalize a book I will read it alone and only when I can make time to fully focus on it
I typically have 5 or so books in rotation - a mystery/crime novel (lately Western/crime guy C.J. Box’s Joe Pickett books), non-fiction music or film book (lately “Dreaming the Beatles”), maybe a short story collection, a Hemingway novel or Hemingway studies book, and a literary novel. I like the variety, I guess.
I do have a hard time abandoning any book I start, although as I get older I’m more willing to cut out on something I decide isn’t worth reading. Because, ya know, life is too short to …
I always read two books at a time, one fiction and one non-fiction! I didn't use to do this when I was younger, only reading one book at a time. But in recent years I've gotten used to juggling between a fiction and a nonfiction, and I feel strange if I'm only reading one book at any given moment. Current nonfiction: The Noonday Demon. Current fiction: White Teeth.
I usually read up to five at once (ebooks for reading on the go, audiobooks for multitasking, and regular books for bedtime). But I also read 10-15 serialized webtoons every week lol. Oddly enough, I don’t have trouble keeping the stories straight. I used to be a one book at a time person, but I wasn’t able to finish that many for my reading goals, so I started getting multiple formats from the library instead. I’m averaging about 120 books a year now. I guess I’m just addicted to storytelling (and always need to be entertained 😄)
One mindless fiction among too many mindful books keeps me progressing and regressing. I am like a planet in this way. Move forward many steps with many philosophical boos, move back into comfort zone (a nice fiction), again move forward and so on and so forth. Ebb and flow
I have fifteen-ish books on my nightstand and about forty more on a bookcase in my bedroom and am generally pecking at many of them on any given day. I sometimes say I have literary commitment issues, but really I just like a lot of variety. I grew up on serialized fiction like comic books and soaps, so it feels right to me to dip in and out of a lot of things at once rather than sticking with just one book to the end.
I also read nonfiction very differently. Well, resource nonfiction, not like biographies and such, you know, narrative nonfiction. With resource books, I read from the index. (It's sort of like reading Wikipedia and following links.) I find I take them out in no time that way because my interest is my guide rather than the layout.
I tend to read one book at a time. I don’t think I have ever done more than that, excluding research where I will be just finding the information I need from books and where there is no need to read the whole book.
Hats off to you if you can read several books at once.
If you include "listening" to a book, I'm always reading 2 books simultaneously. I have the book (almost always fiction) I read at home, evenings and weekends. (Currently rereading Blonde Faith by Walter Mosely, god what a rich, enlightening read) My commute is an hour each way so I get 2 hours in every weekday on the audible.
I read multiple at a time. Mostly in different formats. I normally have an audiobook, a paperback, and an e-book on my Kindle that I like to read depending on where I'm at.
I generally read a TON of books at a time, over ten. I think I just have trouble abandoning books, so when I slow down with one, instead of being honest with myself it enters "book purgatory." Every few years I DO finish a book in book purgatory though, so it's ambivalent to the extreme.
I don't regret this way of reading though and have always had it. It makes travelling difficult because I tend to pack ~6 books, when I don't even have the intention of finishing any :-)
I think at the bare minimum I'm actively reading one book of non fiction and one of poetry and one of fiction. I don't think these kinds of books can replace one another in any way, they are different mind spaces and I can't stand not having anything to read when I want a fictional escape, or to be informed, etc. Hope that makes sense!
Curious how others read and whether they'd defend it :-)
I remember I started reading the Cliffton Chronicles by Jeffery Archer. I got to the end of the second book in the series, and the story took place in the 1920s (I think), when the hero comes into New York and ends up getting arrested and they read him his Miranda rights. That didn't come into law until the 1960s. I didn't pick up the next book in the series. That ever happen, when you find a mistake so glaringly bad, you can't let yourself carry on?
We must be related Matt! When I read paper books I read several at one time depending on how I felt. Now that I listen to audio books I usually listen to one at a time, but occasionally I listen to two when the sleep timer isn't working on Audible. I like to go to bed listening then fall asleep but I have to be able to count on the timer to work.
One book at a time if I'm hooked. Multiple books at a time if I'm moderately interested in it at the time. Sometimes I need to book the moderately interesting book to the side and pick it up later when my mood or life changes and then it becomes my solo book.
Same, 3 as a minimum, for different times of the day and different mind states - fiction for before bed because anything else either gets my brain overactive or my brain is incapable of processing; philosophical in the morning to focus and contemplate during meditation, and then another non-fiction that's likely related to whatever it is that's interesting me at the time. And then there's the audiobooks. And possibly a bank of articles and newsletters I've saved up. It's a lot, and I do sometimes question the value/pitfalls of my methods, whether the over-consumption overfills rather than fuels me. But I know that it works (or is it a habit that's hard to break?). Ditto, my partner immerses himself in one at a time and mocks me for being a poindexter. Frankly, I'll take that label!
Liked the honesty, I feel we should do what we want if you don't want to read that's ok but we have to not want because of our laziness and procrastination and continue if we see the benefits
I'm same as you. Although I only generally read one novel at a time (sometimes two), I'm always dipping in and out of others.
For example, currently reading collections of short stories by Dostoevsky, Sartre, and Bernard Mamamud. Also reading New Europe by Michael Palin. A book on the language policies in the ex-Yugoslav republics, which I don't think would interest anyone but me! A book by a teenager forced to defend Berlin in the dying days of the Third Reich. And still trying to find a novel I can get into, since finishing one a few days ago.
I do both, which at first sounds like a paradox, but really what happens is this: I pick up several that I start and sometimes float between. These are often non-fiction,with one fiction in circulation. Then, I will reach a place in one of those books that captures me more than the others and I will then read that one till complete. Usually it’s the fiction one, though not always. I have started Michener’s The Source two months ago and read several books since that one. It is a 1,000 pages, after all.
I don’t think there’s a wrong or a right way, just a preference or what suits you. Some people are not able to follow more than one plot-line or hold different learning topics and thus need to read one book at a time. I wonder how your girlfriend, and people like her, managed in school, where one had to read multiple books at a time? (Well, in my day…I’m 44, maybe they don’t do that anymore, or only in college?).
I’ve been trying to practice radical freedom with my reading lately. If I want to start another book while I’m in the middle of one already, go for it. If I want to put a book in the graveyard even though I’m a third of the way in, okay no problem.
I’m also wildly inconsistent with reading. One month, 5-6 books, another month, one-third of two books and another in the graveyard!
Radical freedom reading is not for everyone. What I will say though, is that the books that come into my life that I finish, they’re all top 10% to me. Maybe I’m allowing more magic in rather than controlling my consumption.
Frankly, I have never ever read multiple books at the same time. Not because I have something against but simply because the thought of starting other books while I’m already reading one has never occurred to me. If I fall in love with a book I want to finish it reading real quick because I’m impatient that way. I just have to know what’s going on and how’s it going to end.
Also, I used to be like your fiancé- not abandoning a book (especially if it’s from a author I like) because ITS A BOOK. How can you abandon a book? But not anymore. Now, if I don’t connect with the book in first few pages I stop reading it.
I have a question of my own, if I may? Do you and others here have book goals? Like I will finish reading 3 books in a month. That type of thing. Because I don’t.
So interesting! I’m exactly like your fiancée and my husband is exactly like you! We both suspect gender might play in a role in this behavior - he thinks the ancient hunter instinct is driving men to read multiple books at a time (I don’t know? Like the equivalent of catching multiple prays?). Either way, I’m always fascinated that he can read 4-5 books at a time. Like how does he (and you and all the multi-book readers!) keep track of the story threads? Do characters ever get swapped out? I think he likes having different books for different moods and times. Honestly for me it would create too much confusion. I like to read one book at a time because I like to be fully absorbed in one story, immerse myself in one world and get intimate with those characters. I also have a (I think bad) habit of not being able to NOT finish a book. Even when it’s not great. It’s like I made a pact and I got to get to the end.
I struggle with reading more than one book a time. I have to read one at a time or I’ll get lost. However, it isn’t the same with blogs, articles, courses and others… I read all day long, in different devices and about different topics
I guess for me it’s a matter of internalizing what I’m reading - If I care to internalize a book I will read it alone and only when I can make time to fully focus on it
I typically have 5 or so books in rotation - a mystery/crime novel (lately Western/crime guy C.J. Box’s Joe Pickett books), non-fiction music or film book (lately “Dreaming the Beatles”), maybe a short story collection, a Hemingway novel or Hemingway studies book, and a literary novel. I like the variety, I guess.
I do have a hard time abandoning any book I start, although as I get older I’m more willing to cut out on something I decide isn’t worth reading. Because, ya know, life is too short to …
I always read two books at a time, one fiction and one non-fiction! I didn't use to do this when I was younger, only reading one book at a time. But in recent years I've gotten used to juggling between a fiction and a nonfiction, and I feel strange if I'm only reading one book at any given moment. Current nonfiction: The Noonday Demon. Current fiction: White Teeth.
I usually read up to five at once (ebooks for reading on the go, audiobooks for multitasking, and regular books for bedtime). But I also read 10-15 serialized webtoons every week lol. Oddly enough, I don’t have trouble keeping the stories straight. I used to be a one book at a time person, but I wasn’t able to finish that many for my reading goals, so I started getting multiple formats from the library instead. I’m averaging about 120 books a year now. I guess I’m just addicted to storytelling (and always need to be entertained 😄)
One mindless fiction among too many mindful books keeps me progressing and regressing. I am like a planet in this way. Move forward many steps with many philosophical boos, move back into comfort zone (a nice fiction), again move forward and so on and so forth. Ebb and flow
I have fifteen-ish books on my nightstand and about forty more on a bookcase in my bedroom and am generally pecking at many of them on any given day. I sometimes say I have literary commitment issues, but really I just like a lot of variety. I grew up on serialized fiction like comic books and soaps, so it feels right to me to dip in and out of a lot of things at once rather than sticking with just one book to the end.
I also read nonfiction very differently. Well, resource nonfiction, not like biographies and such, you know, narrative nonfiction. With resource books, I read from the index. (It's sort of like reading Wikipedia and following links.) I find I take them out in no time that way because my interest is my guide rather than the layout.
Usually one main one at a time, plus a few more for different moods or because I couldn't give it up yet or because it was due back to the library.
I tend to read one book at a time. I don’t think I have ever done more than that, excluding research where I will be just finding the information I need from books and where there is no need to read the whole book.
Hats off to you if you can read several books at once.
If you include "listening" to a book, I'm always reading 2 books simultaneously. I have the book (almost always fiction) I read at home, evenings and weekends. (Currently rereading Blonde Faith by Walter Mosely, god what a rich, enlightening read) My commute is an hour each way so I get 2 hours in every weekday on the audible.
I read multiple at a time. Mostly in different formats. I normally have an audiobook, a paperback, and an e-book on my Kindle that I like to read depending on where I'm at.
For novels, no. For anything else (short story collections, biographies, history, etc) of course, yes
I always have three or four on the go, depends what mood I am in to which I choose to pick up in the moment 😊
Every so often I will say to myself... no more buying new books till I finish this one... so I speed up and finish it... so I can buy a new book 😂