I've met people who could read only one book at a time, and usually they were boring people who read fluffy stuff like those awful, formulaic, romance paperbacks or, if me, westerns like the "Longarm" series.

Well, at least they were reading something. As my old drinkin' buddy Sam Clemens used to say, "The man who can read and doesn't has nothing over the man who can't read." (After a few drinks he'd get it turned around and them we'd make him recite "She sells seashells..." and before you knew it a fight would break out and...well, never mind. But we knew which doors in Hannibal we could "borrow" to use as a litter to take Sam home.)

I suspect that minds which can grasp complexity are those which read several things at once. For example, I understand the President of the US can read six or eight "Curious George" and Dr. Seuss books in succession, even if sometimes he gets the characters and plots confused. (Actually, he first thought "Curious George" was about his adolescent days and wanted it banned.)