Do you read one book at a time, or multiple books in parallel? I've always read one book at a time for fear that if I distract myself with other books, I'll never finish the first one. But sometimes I really dread picking up a dense book that I've already been reading for weeks and wish I could read another topic or even just a thriller or something light that day.
it really depends. when i was younger i could only read one fiction book at a time and i still pretty much work that way unless i'm reading books i find connected thematically and am comparing/contrasting while reading. however i find no problem at all with reading multiple nonfiction books at once and prefer doing so across disparate subjects. i think it helps with absorbing information, actually, to be reading multiple nonfiction books and at least one fiction book at the same time. that way when you feel overloaded from the density of one you can just switch to another for a bit of a break. instead of having to pause reading altogether, you make progress in all books simultaneously by rotating until you tire of them.
>>254603122 parallel usually
>>25460312For fiction and short stories it's no issue but I haven't really managed to read two novels at once. Maybe it's because it doesn't feel natural and I have try harder. What's worked though is taking a break from a big novel and reading a lighter one. I've done that a few times.
I've got about four books on the go right now, Not including assorted short story collections. In that case it's more like 7 or 8. Several of those are on my back burner too, Only actively focusing on two or three right now.
>>25460430non-fiction*
>>25460434How do you keep your focus on so many different stories at once? I would feel pulled out of the momentum when switching between that many, especially when coming back after a break and trying to remember who is who and doing what.
>>25460438How Is too hard to explain. That's just how I work, I've always been this way, Even back in school I often had several books on the go at Simultaneously. It's true that it can get overwhelming sometimes and it's easy for me to do that, But I've gotten better at keeping the number down as the years have gone by. However this year has seen a bit of a relapse. All those books on my Goodreads currently reading don't include books I finished quickly, They're all books I've been reading over the course of several months. One book I've had on the go since December. And like I said several of them are short story collections so they kind of don't count anyways.>especially when coming back after a break and trying to remember who is who and doing what.I never found that too hard honestly, Especially once I start in on the book again.
These are all the books I have on the go at the moment. You can see the tags I've given them including books I'm focusing on ("main") As well as backburners.
>>25460444I do that but with nonfiction. It just seems like it would be more complicated when the book is about a specific plot rather than some historical event or critical film analysis. Usually when I take too long between reading something I just start the book over anyway, and that seems like it would get repetitive when trying to read multiple stories at once. I'm glad it works for you though, it must be nice to be able to do that easily. Like having another world you can always drop into.
>>25460452>Usually when I take too long between reading something I just start the book over anyway,I do do that quite regularly. In fact I just reshelved a couple of titles in my Goodreads to DNF. You can see here >>25460450 all the books I currently have on-the-go.Picrel is all of the books I've read (and finished) this year, BTW. So it's quite dynamic.
>>25460464oh hey, you have the manga hp lovecraft copies i've been looking at since they first came out. i got at the mountains of madness by tanabe long ago for an ex but haven't bought any of them myself yet. what do you think of the quality?
>>25460470Oh yeah, I've read all of them except for his adaptation of The Colour Out of Space. They're excellent quality for sure, I would really recommend them. The illustrations are absolutely SICK. I read Tanabe's At the Mountains of Madness first and was hooked. Very disturbing and incredibly detailed imagery.I heard recently that an English translation of Gou Tanabe's The Dunwich Horror is coming out in October, and I'm insanely psyched.
>>25460480oh nice, i'll have to get them soon. maybe for this october! i actually was looking forward to the colour out of space specifically because i find the narrative weak but likely to lend itself well to actual illustration... as long as you can forget that terrible nic cage movie!
>>25460312One fiction and one non-fiction, pretty much always. I read fiction in bed before sleeping, and non-fiction during the day. If I know I have enough time and won't be disturbed by anything (even if it's just noise), I'll read fiction during the day too, but it's rare.
>>25460312Multiple at a time because I read whatever I'm in the mood for at the time of reading. Sometimes that's high fantasy, sometimes that's military history, sometimes that's a biography, sometimes that's a thick classic, sometimes that's a casual light novel, etc. Takes significantly longer to get through books due to shuffling between multiple at once but I'm not exactly on a deadline with my reading so who cares.
>>25460438You get drawn back in the moment you begin reading it again. If you forget what was going on, just glance through the last chapter read and refresh yourself.
>>254603122 maybe 3 if 1 is a short read
>>25460480>insanely psychedOooooh the madness~
>>25460450>>25460464oh anon i just realized we were both in that recent cop thread, i really do hope you enjoy those clark ashton smith and arthur c clarke stories! maybe try jack vance if you get a chance. your post is reminding me to get off my ass and read more ligotti too, have had songs of a dead dreamer and grimscribe listed as currently reading for like three years now.
>>25460450based Steve Coll enjoyerDirectorate S and the Achilles trap are also good
>>25460312I'm reading 3 novels, 2 short story collections, and 1 poetry book right now. Usually I prefer to do just 2-3 books at a time so this has gotten a little out of hand, but for some reason I'm not having a hard time keeping them separated mentally.
>>25460312As many as I like, I have about forty of them going right now, & i don't understand why someone would struggle with that. If you drop a book, and start to read something else to your limit, do you feel the need to restart the dropped book from the beginning when you come back to it? Do you have memory problems? I can drop books for twenty years and read hundreds in between and come back to it no problem. Or is this an aesthetics thing like an every day carry thread for your book picking up routine?
>>25460312One. I end up liking one more and reading that one instead.
