Do you get satisfaction from a book if you read it in one go? (Like watching a long awaited film)
Do you prefer the satisfaction of reading it in ‘installments’ over a few days or weeks? (thus being able to savour/take in what you have read each time)
Do you prefer to set yourself a kind of regiment to read a set number of pages at each sitting in order to savour the book fully over maybe a few months?
Which are you?
I think I am usually number 3, but sometimes a book is too good to put down (in my case this applies to a new Pratchett book, or a new installemt of the Harry Potter series)
I have been kicking myself for reading too much of the last harry potter book in one sitting. I believe by doing so I am not savouring it properly. Also I am allowing it to overcome sleep and thus my normal reason for reading books… to make me sleepy and fall asleep.
I usually just read on the can. If a part piques my interest I’ll walk out with the book. I like to read at my leisure, a few chapters at a time.
I read the last third of the HP book in one go mostly because I was bound to it, and partly because I didnt want it spoiled any further. It was late as hell and I missed a lot of details in the ending. I took at least a week with the previous one.
I love to read in one go. unfortunately between work and kids that is no longer possible. only exception is like today when I spent 19 hours flying from orlando to shanghai. either read or sleep. it’s my last chance to do so.
Both. Some books I just inhale; others I read for a bit and put down, then pick it up later. Sometimes I’m reading two or three, switching from one to the other as the mood strikes me.
I always read them in one to three sittings–if I haven’t got time to read like that (basically, from September-May), I reread things I have read before. I read extremely superfically, skipping whole paragraphs. However, I am a chronic rereader–there are books I suspect I’ve read 50 times, and there are hundreds of books I’ve read at least five times. My husband is the exact opposite–he reads slowly and carefully, in small pieces, and then remembers everything that happened forever, so there is no reason or joy in rereading.
I read when ever’s comfortable for me, if I get a few hours or just a few minutes, I’ll take them. I’ve never read a book all in one sitting (in the sense of a few hours, with no break save for eating), unless its simply been a rather short book.
If it’s riveting fiction, I would prefer to read the entire book in one sitting, but that’s rarely possible with this pesky family and job to worry about. Most non-fiction books are less absorbing and it takes many small periods of reading to finish those.
I"ll pick up and put down a book quite a bit, but if it takes me more than a week it’s either really long, boring, or both. A good book catches my interest, and I’ll have a hard time leaving it down for any real period of time (I would not be exaggerating much to say that I finished the fifth Harry Potter book in 24 hours, including time for food and sleep). I’ll finish the average novel in a couple days barring other things taking up too much of my time. Which kind of sucks, because I’m not the type of person to reread a story very often, so it’s hard to keep me in books. As a result I don’t read as much as when I was younger–I go through novels too fast to even try.
Ditto. With Harry Potter 7, I was desperate to get my copy and read it before it was spoiled for me or my daughter took it (I promised her she could read it first but she wasn’t around when it came). My husband was being so considerate of my need for quality reading time that I kept laying the book aside to make sure he didn’t feel too neglected.
When I start a book, I expect I won’t finish the whole thing all at once, but it rarely takes me more than a few days to finish. If the book’s good enough, though, I’ll stay up all night reading it. I remember two specific books I read all the way through: Sphere, by Michael Crichton, and UFOs, JFK, and Elvis by Richard Belzer.
I read them pretty much all at once. I’m capable of reading a single book over a couple of days time, but not over weeks or months! I prefer to go cover-to-cover at one sitting but with two small kids, it’s just not possible anymore. I ‘reserve’ reading time with The Bog to make sure I get my fix.
All in one go, if possible. And then if I liked it, I’ll read it again after a few months. Actually, my memory is so bad that I can read mystery novels up to three times – albeit with gaps of several months or years in between – and still have the ending be a surprise each time.
I prefer to read it in one go. I used to gulp down novels to the tune of several a day as a kid…
Now I don’t have time though, so I sip a little more slowly. Usually if I don’t finish a book within a couple weeks of starting, I might not finish it at all because it’s often a library book and it needs to go back, or it hasn’t captured my attention enough.
That’s novels though. I’m more likely to stew over philosophy or history books. Take my time reading a couple chapters and then ponder it a bit before going onwards. Those take longer, especially philosophy, but history not more than a month give or take a week.
It depends on the book. Generally, when it’s nonfiction and the chapters are divided by subtopic, I’ll read as far as I feel like. I don’t need to remember a previous chapter’s details as much. With fiction, I’ll probably forget some details if I put it down, so I’m more likely to read them in one go. But for either genre, with highly-anticipated titles, I’ll inhale them in one sitting.
I’m reading Vincent Bugliosi’s new book on the Kennedy assassination, Reclaiming History: 1,600 pages, plus a CD-ROM with several hundred more pages of endnotes.
