I typically have one on my nightstand, one in the upstairs bathroom, either a book or magazine on the kitchen table, and something in the car to read at lunch or in the event I end up eating dinner alone.
Right now, it’s Robert Wright’s The Moral Animal : Why We Are the Way We Are : The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology on the nightstand, Judith Rich Harris’ The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do in the bathroom, Gore Vidal’s United States: Essays: 1952-1992 on the table, and Daniel Dennett’s Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (my second pass through it) in the car. Until yesterday, the car/lunch slot was occupied by Alfred Lansing’s Endurance : Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage about Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ill-fated 1914-1916 Antarctic expedition. The Nurture Assumption is a bit more weighty than my usual bathroom reading – I tend more toward one of Cecil’s collections, or something like one of Dean King’s reference works for Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series.
I am also a multi-book type. I frequently check out several books from the library and can’t decide which one to read first, so I end up reading them all at once–one for an hour or so, then another, and so on. Sometimes I prefer one over another based on my mood at the moment. Then there are magazines. My bed is always covered with reading material of one sort or another.
I have a few going. I always do.
I’m reading:
[ul]
[li]Red Dragon by Thomas Harris (for the second time now)[/li][li]Year’s Best Science Fiction (17th Annual) ed. by Gardner Dozois[/li][li]Our Dumb Century by The Onion, a very good satirical news book. For example, one of the headlines reads: ‘Bleeping Two-Foot Tin Ball Threatens Free World’, dated October 4, 1957. Another reads ‘Kennedy Slain By CIA, Mafia, Castro, LBJ, Teamsters, Freemasons. President shot 129 times from 43 different angles.’ dated November 22, 1963. Of course, they were all written in 1999, but they and the other stories on the front page are hilarious.[/li][/ul]
That’s an oddly short list for me. I’m usually reading many more at once. As for The Sound and The Fury, how did that stinker make the 100 Best Books of the Century? It is a worthless plot told in an annoying way from a very sterile, bland perspective. What is he trying to prove? I think it ranks with Finnegan’s Wake (that piece of nonsensical junk) and the sappier parts of The Grapes of Wrath (you know, the parts when Steinbeck forgets he’s trying to lynch capitalism and attempts humor). Anyway, I’d suggest anyone thinking of reading The Sound and The Fury read it for a while at your local library. Ask yourself: Do you really want to read a whole novel written in that semi-literate style? I sure didn’t.
I started doing this only about a year ago. At points, I’d be in the middle of five at a time, but I don’t like to divide my attention like that, so I’ve been trying to focus. I was just recently attempting to give Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson, my undivided attention, but then I got my order from Amazon yesterday, and I couldn’t help myself. So now I’m reading Boswell’s Life of Johnson as well.
This is in addition to all the damned magazines and comic books I read every month, of course. The floor of my bedroom is awesome in its clutter.
I do read more than one book at a time, but I don’t mean to. I start reading one, then I see another good one or hear about one and start reading it too, and so on. I’m currently rereading The Illuminatus! trilogy, The Tao Te Ching, and reading Fletch Won. I’m also looking at starting another couple, as soon as I can find someplace that has them. I might also read Night, as I just found the copy that I had purchased and then misplaced before I could read it.
-Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
-The Lord of Chaos (book 6 of the Wheel of Time)
-Dune: house Atreides (prelude to the dune series
which means that I am going to pick up that
series again.
-Macbeth
-The reality disfunction series
-and I just finished off the Lord of the Rings
My family can’t understand how I juggle all those stories and I don’t mix them all up I guess it’s just a skill I have
I’m right there with you all, currently in the middle of:
Art and Lies by Jeanette Winterson
Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (again)
The Acid House by Irvine Welsh
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (again)
That’s the other thing. I fall in love with some books and when parts of a new book remind me of one of my favorites, I have to pick it up again. Thus I’m always rereading at least one book at any given time. Am I the only one who does this?
I also usually read at least 2 books at a time.
I also read and watch TV, which drives my husband crazy. I will watch the show and read during commercials. He doesn’t understand how I can keep them straight.
Right now I am reading: The Indwelling, by Tim LeHaye & Jerry Jenkins The Lion’s Game, by Nelson DeMille, and The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver
I usually don’t exceed two books at a time. But this helps me finish them in time for the hectic pace of High School.
English is the worst (of course), with two good sized books in the summer, and then about one a month during the year. History throws one out during summer, and then a book or two in the year. The rest of my classes are bookless.
Huh. Weird. I’m one of the most voracious readers I know - I just read an entire book yesterday, cover to cover - but I usually keep it to one at a time. I kind of like to let my mind wander back into the story at times, like when I’m falling asleep. I find it’s harder to do that with mulitiple stories floating around.
BTW, a bit off topic here, if you’re a sci-fi/fantasy fan that has a hard time wading through the garbage to get the good stuff, look for the Robert Silverburg anthologies. His sci-fi one is called “Far Horizons” and the fantasy one is a three-book series called “Legends.” (Legends vol 2 is the one I read yesterday) The books consist of the leading writers in the field writing short stories set in their most famous universes. After reading those, I have a list 5 pages long in my Palm Pilot of books to read. Good stuff.
Add another name to the list of thosde who read multiple books at the same time.
In the past two months, I’ve read: Lost Horizon James Hilton Arms and the Man George Bernard Shaw A Midsummer Night’s Dream Shakespeare The Goblet of Fire J.K. Rowling
a script called The Haunting of Hathaway House
Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays Laurent Bouzerau Green Rider Kristen Britain
the libretto of La Boheme Giacomo Puccini
and about five or six other library books that I can’t remember the titles of.
I didn’t read all of them at the same time, but at least two were being read at one point or another. But this is the summer, and once school starts, I’ll be lucky if I can read one pleasure book. ::Sigh::
Books are like perfume. What I pick depends on my mood.
I’m in the middle of a half dozen books. And tonight, I’m eyeing one of my Calvin & Hobbes books cause I don’t want to concentrate too hard and I want to laugh.
I prefer to read one at a time, but due to school, I get to read however many books they assign me plus a pleasure book of my own. Goody. At least I don’t mix plots.
Victoria, an Intimate Biography by Stanley Weintraub (Yes, QUEEN Victoria)
Rilla of Ingleside by L. M. Montgomery
Remembrance by Jude Deveraux
Melody by V. C. Andrews
I haven’t read just one book at a time for…oh, longer than I can remember.
Right now I’m working on: I Rant, Therefore I Am, Dennis Miller The Ecolitan Enigma, L.E. Modesitt, Jr. Kim, Rudyard Kipling The Diplomacy of Wolves, Holly Lisle
and I just finished rereading Jhereg by Steven Brust, which was my take-to-work book and I have to pick out a replacement by Monday.
to you all.