Anybody else read more than one book at a time?

[MaesterHeisenberg]

I find myself always intending to only read one book at a time and even if that book is really good my mind wanders into wanting to read a different genre. I've noticed the last 2 years I have spent reading a fantasy novel and a mystery novel at the same time almost always.

Anybody else?

[TempusFugit]

Almost always. It's not unusual for me to have 3 or 4 books on the go at the same time, though I try to ensure that they are a mix of fiction and non-fiction across genres and subject matter. That way, if I'm not in the mood to read a particular book then I have other options to choose from,

[Brendan Moody]

I'm reading four books at the moment. It was five until I finished one at lunch today. No, wait, I forgot one, so it is five and was six. I may start another one tonight. I usually juggle at least two books, but the count is only as high as it at the moment because there are a couple of not-especially-compelling review copies that are on the back burner.

[Galleymac]

I do, and it is the bane of my existence. In the worst cases I've had a book for each room (bed, living, one in the bag for the commute to work...). I'm trying to stop doing that -- and cut down on multitasking in general -- I remember being good at it, long, long ago, but now it just seems like a way to feel bad about not finishing several things instead of just feeling bad about one.

[Opisthokont]

Three, intentionally. One novel, one short story collection, and one non-fiction (usually something sciency). When I finish a book I start a new one of the same type.

[Larry of the Lawn]

I try to avoid it, but I'd say about half of the time I have multiple books in progress. I'm getting better at going one at a time though.

[MaesterHeisenberg]

It makes me feel guilty. I feel like when i'm reading one book that I should be reading the other or that i'm dampening the experience by not completely concentrating on one at a time. I justify it by telling myself that I don't watch only one show at a time.

[Eponine]

I usually have one that's slow going and one that I read in a few sittings. Sometimes a book is slow going because I'm having to push to finish it and stay on it (I couldn't read more than a few chapters of Daniel Yergin's The Prize in a row) and sometimes because I don't have the time or attention that a complex book demands, but I do have the ability to fly through a page-turner.

[Fenryng]

All the time, and it is the bane of my existence with regards to the fact that I never get any of them finished in anything close to the short time it would take if I could just FOCUS on one at a time.

First world problem, admittedly.

[felice]

Not since I finished Dreamsongs.

[wolverine]

Almost never. If a book I really want to read is slow going then I may insert something I know will be lighter and go back to it. But that has only been a couple times.

[TomBadgerlock]

I'm currently in the middle of about six :bang:.

It's not really intentional, just got a little bored of some and picked up others along the way, but intend to finish them all.

[KingAlanI]

I avoid it. I don't want to read non-library books when I have a library book to finish, and I avoid having mutliple library books out at the same time because there's a good chance I won't finish all of them by the time they're due.

[Melonica Stormborn]

I did. I tried. I made myself believe that it was like watching several TV shows in one night...........and it didn't work too well for me, I just felt so flustered and took longer to finish than if I read them one at a time. So I just read one book at a time now. My new blunder is I started three book series at once in rotation and I will now be flustered the whole year round (although I'm handling it much better than multiple books at a time since I still technically read one book at a time).

[red snow]

I used to do it all the time as a kid, I'd have a book to read at school and a library book of my own choosing to read. My english teacher didn't mind me reading dr who novelisations (and other fun stuff) all the time but would push some more "useful" books for school. Glad I went for the compromise of doing both at once. I didn't have a problem switching styles back then. I'm starting to think that flexibility diminishes with age as i even prefer to watch tv shows in blocks as opposed to watching several different shows every week.

Nowadays it doesn't really work out that well. I do have a kindle book for travel and a hardcopy for home but the kindle book is usually reserved for travel so isn't that concurrent. The pacing for kindle vs book at home is odd. Kindle tends to be very sparse followed by intense reading (got through a book while on train to strasbourg and back but have yet to finish another that i started in september), while the at home book is more steady but in smaller chunks.

A bad habit i started last year was starting books and then not finishing them - this was mainly due to moving around and losing a book but it's my mission to finish them this year.

[devotee]

I usually read two at the same time, at rare occasions three. One book for reading on the toilet, and one for bedtime/lunch break at work is the general standard.

[Winter's Knight]

It depends on the book/author. Tamora Pierce cannot hold me for too long, so I am currently reading Song of the Lioness side-by-side with the Nightrunner series.

Martin, Kushner, Malinda Lo et al however require my undivided attention.

[Buckwheat]

I do it often, It also means that each books takes longer than it would if I only focused on one. What I choose at a moment depends on the mood and also whether the book is small enough to carry around in a bag and read other places.

[KAH]

I am, and it's a freaking mess. I have books that I've forgotten that I've started on; books that I'm half-way through that have been moved by my SO and I can't find them (and so I pick up something else to read), books that I am on-and-off reading between papers and magazines...it's a mess. I have no idea how many books I'm "reading" right now.

However, if I have something really compelling, I will ordinarily finish that without problem; it's the semi-interesting stuff that get jumbled together. Anthologies, biographies, assorted history, stuff like that.

[Datepalm]

I might be a slight outlier here. I used to read books in class back in school, and every so often, they would get confiscated. So i'd move on to something else until the teacher could be persuaded to give them back, (sometimes i'd pull the other book out of my bag right then and go on reading. Once this happened twice.) so I picked up a fairly prolific multi-reading habit. (This went on right until that time a math teacher abducted 100 Years of Solitude in the 12th grade. God, that was brutal. Never again.) I also like to balance between genres, fiction/non fiction, collections, things that relate to different areas of life - reading for research, for pleasure, for school, for some momentary personal curiosity, for a project (like "read more women" or whatever,) etc, etc.

So...I usually have about 6-8 books that I can honestly be said to be reading, in that I would have no problem flipping them open where I last left them and carrying on with no confusion, and maybe up to another ten that are ongoing, but would demand rereading the last chapter or something when I pick them up again. I feel like it it starts getting out of hand when I pass the 15 book mark and I try to pare back at that point. (i'm currently down to 12 on the Goodreads "currently reading" pile, including a textbook and a language-learning project, so i'm really please with myself, weirdly enough.)