BS: Reading books in parallel

Subject: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 06:19 PM

I am curious how far other people share my way of reading books in parallel.

What I mean is that typically I read several books alongside each other, maybe four or five at a time, of various sorts.

For example right now I've got on the go:

Blue Shoes and Happiness - one of the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexandar McCall Smith

Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens by GK Chesterton

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

The Emperor's New Mind by Roger Penrose

The idea is that each of the books works away in different ways, and the easier reading ones and, the easier reading sections, help push me through the others, and keep some momentum going. The trick is to be firm about switching from one to the other at the end of a chapter or section, even when I'm dying to keep on reading. And they clour each other in other ways as well.

And after while I quite often find thatt the books that started out as heavy going become the ones I have to tear myself away from.

So I'm wondering, is this a practice peculiar to me, or do other people do this as well?

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 06:25 PM

I don't interweave texts like you describe, but it is a common practice in literary and philosophy sorts of scholarship to "pass one text over another," to give them a close reading (or viewing--it works with film also) one right after the other, perhaps going back and rereading each. It yields some interesting insights.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 07:19 PM

Oh, all the time. I've got five or six going right now, apart from what I'm reading at work.

So very many books....

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: mrdux
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 07:36 PM

I am usually reading two books and a magazine or journal at any given time, although not with any particularly regular switching from volume to volume -- I mostly just wind up picking up the one the suits my moment. Right now, I'm reading Titus Groan, by Mervyn Peake, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, by Timothy Gantz, and the May/June issue of Fanfare. (I don't know if I can legitimately count Godel, Escher, Bach, which is still in the stack and still bookmarked where I last stopped, but still isn't moving very fast).

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 07:57 PM

i last tried to read a book in 1989 or thereabouts..

Conrdads's "Lord Jim"


but i got released early from hospital before i could finish it...


though i did try to read it in parallel with playing cards with other patients

and drinking hospital catering soup..

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 08:09 PM

Let's see. I'm currently reading (at home):

"Godel, Escher, Bach" (yes, Mrdux, me too).
"Tom Horn: Blood on the Moon"
"Eyes of the Husky"
"Against the Gods: the remarkable story of risk"
Various travel books on Ireland and Alberta
The latest "Tundra" collection
Dana Stabenow's latest Kate Shugak
"Thrum's Hawaiian Folk Tales"
"A Rendezvous Reader"
Utley's "Frontier Regulars"

and the local newspaper.

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Bert
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 08:18 PM

I often have two or three but they differ in type.

Maybe a fiction, a biography and a technical.

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Gulliver
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 08:28 PM

I'm reading "Picnic in a foreign land" (Morrow), "The Real Charlotte" (Somerville and Ross), "Éamon de Valera" (Longford), "Luke Kelly" (Des Geraghty), "Juedisches Leben" (Sacher-Masoch). I've read Juedisches Leben before but it's all short stories and I like to keep it handy to dip into, in part to keep up my German, as also with stuff by Arthur Schnitzler and Joseph Roth. I buy the Irish Times but never get to read much of it. I read voraciously on the web.

I've had "Godel, Escher, Bach" lying around for ages but haven't got into it yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 08:38 PM

Rapaire,

What a large house you must have! So many bathrooms! ;-D

Alas, I have only two: the current New Yorker is parked in the master bathroom and the latest Martha Stewart Living in the hall bathroom. Bedside reading is the fifth Harry Potter (going very slowly).

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Helen
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 08:39 PM

At present I am reading:

LM Montgomery: Anne of Green Gables (first time, believe it or not - I remembered it was a favourite of my late Mum and now I think I know why she called my sister Anne "with an e" rather than Ann after her own mother)

Ursula Le Guin: Wizard of Earthsea (because I just saw the telly-movie and wanted to remind myself of the book and see how different it is from the movie - first read this series in late 70's)

Laurence J Peter: The Peter Principle (because after years of searching I finally found it again, and so many things in the places I have worked fit his principle - entertaining and informative - you'll never see workplace actions in quite the same light)

Robert Ludlum: Bourne Identity (I keep trying to get into it but I just can't seem to take the characters as seriously as they take themselves)

As for Godel, Escher & Bach: I finally stopped thinking I might read it and gave it away to a work colleague. I've had it for 20 or so years.

That's the list of the ones I do look like finishing, but there are others I pick up, read a bit and then put down again. I do the multi-book thing like mrdux, picking up the one which suits me at the moment.

Is it a librarian thing, Rapaire? Like being at a smorgasbord with too many choices to take one thing at a time, finish it and then start the next? That's how I started the habit, I think.

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 08:42 PM

mostly thse days i am reading

http://www.mudcat.org/threads.cfm


Sound on Sound


tattoos on womens chests

and the Radio Times

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 08:52 PM

Hell, you people have way too many working brain cells! It's one book at a time for me.

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 09:05 PM

I only read one at a ime, literally speaking, but I sometimes have five in train at once, and move from one to another depending on mood, convenience, or the tide of interest.

River of Doubt, a wonderful descriptions of Teddy Roosevelt's nearly fatal adventures exploring the Amazon basin, plus a book describing a 19th century pioneer's explorations of eastern Africa, plus a couple of others on Africa, plus one on the mind-set and passages of someone going through a gender-switch program, are all current. Plus I just finished Grisham's latest novel which is a new direction for him, about an Arkansas sharesropping family and the perspective of the youngest boy in the family in the days just before rural electrificatin. Great read.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: artbrooks
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 01:10 AM

The only one I can honestly say I am actually reading at the moment is Tony Judt's Postwar, A History of Europe Since 1945. On the other hand, today I finished Mercedes Lackey's Serpent and Shadow and David Weber's We Few, and Wednesday I read the new Clive Cussler. The Weber is the end of a series and I'll work through the remainder of that Lackey series over the next week or so. (I read a lot of science fiction). I just finished the most recent Renaissance magazine and National Geographic and I'm working on this week's Newsweek, the new Military History and this month's Bicycling.

I have some John Keegan I want to reread and am planning a fresh start on Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, but first I need to get back through Harry Potter by mid-July.

There are also a few other things due out soon by authors I follow, and I'll start them at the local great chain bookstore whilst enjoying a cuppa good coffee. Generally, I have a new book that I'm reading there and at least in hand two at home.

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 03:04 AM

Now someone describe the stack of books you intend to read. . . I think I have double my height in books I'd like to get to one of these days.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 03:27 AM

I'm a member of 2 libraries, & consequently I always have 20 library books around.

I'm currently reading:

'A History of Pagan Europe' by Prudence Jones & Nigel Pennick

3 issues of Vanity Fair (Aug 2006, Jan & Apr 2007)

'The Tartar Khan's Englishman' by Gabriel Ronay

the wrong edition of 'The Funeral Effigies of Westminster Abbey' by Harvey & Mortimer (I asked for 2nd rev.ed 2003 & they got 1st ed 1995 even tho I told them which Libraries had the 2nd edition. I hope they won't charge me again when they borrow the correct one as I didn't immediately take it back cos it's too fascinating, but the 2nd ed has 20 extra pages & presumably 8 more years of scholarship)

"Art in Europe 1700 - 1830' by Matthew Craske

5 craft books & 2 books on jewellery (one on ancient gold!) &

This morning I finished 2 issues of 'County Life' (British weekly magazine). Earlier this week I read 3 large children's fantasies - Books 1 - 3 of 'Septimus Heap' by Angie Sage (each the size of the latest Harry Potter )

I'm currently not reading & really must get back to this lot which are not library books:
- 4 Decades of Dr Who
- The Blind Spot by Austin Hall & Homer Eon Flint (SF classic from 1921)
- all the Harry Potter books before I get the next one

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: MBSLynne
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 03:40 AM

I used to have at least two and often three books on the go at once, one in the sitting room one in the bedroom and one in the bathroom so that every time I stopped for five minutes there was a book to hand. Nowadays I spend way too much time on the computer so I only currently have one book going, which is "Nightrise" by Anthony Horowitz.

Love Lynne

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: GUEST,Crystal
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 03:55 AM

I'm dreadful for reading books in paralel. Currently I'm reading "Black Sheep" by Georgette Heyer (left it at work), "Georgette Heyers Regency World" by Jennifer Kloester, "Lady Friday" by Garth Nix and "False Gods" by Graham McNeil.

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Morticia
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 06:01 AM

A Dorothy Parker volume of short stories in the car ( for when I am stopped somewhere between appointments, not when I am driving, honest!). The Moon's a Harsh Mistress by Heinlien next to my bed, Gallilee by Clive Barker downstairs, and Angels by Marian Keyes at work. Just noticed they are all fairly fluffy and undemanding at the moment... must be more stressed than I thought.

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Helen
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 07:54 AM

You will all understand why it has been so strange for me to not be able to settle to reading any books for the past ten years. Life got in the way, in the form of stressful, non-stop job hunting, but now I have a permanent job and not only significantly less stress, but also significantly more hours in the day because I don't have to look for jobs, write job apps, prepare for interviews and cope with the stress of not getting the jobs.

I've started reading again! Yay!

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 09:21 AM

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.)

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: lady penelope
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 10:50 AM

Hmm, I've usually got 'the book I'm reading' (The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde), then 'the book in the loo' (which has been Samuel Pepys diary for a while now....), and then 'the book at work' (Triumph of the moon by Ron Hutton).

I only really read this way out of sheer convenience. I travel mainly by bike, so I don't bother taking a book with me (partly 'cos it's not like I can read while I cycle, but mainly 'cos there's a large chance of the book getting wet, no matter how many bags you wrap it in - this I have learnt from experience....), hence the book at work, and I hate having nothing to read whilst I'm sequestered in the loo.

Nothing so organised as swapping books chapter by chapter. Mind you, I may try that in future for books I find hard work. Cheers MacGrath!

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 04:37 PM

I'm another multiple reader. At the moment, I've got markers in 'Bess of Hardwicke', by someone I can't be bothered to get up and look for, 'The Hounds of the Morrigan' by Pat O'Shea, 'Sleepyhead' by Mark Billingham and I'm presently reading the numbers on the million skeins of embroidery thread I have. I decided to make a database of the colours I have, rather than hunting through 15 boxes to find I have 8 skeins of DMC 827 (light blue) but no holly green.


I'm another commuter who reads, my journey is an hour each way so I can usually get through a book in a couple of days - I just finished 'Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince' in 3 days.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 05:30 PM

Of course, the really impressive thing is writing books in parallel - form example Charles Dickens was writing Nicholas Nickleby while he was still engaged in finishing its predecessor, Oliver Twist.
......................
There are two types of parallel reading, it strikes me - one is where, for example, there's a book you read say when you are commuting, and a another book you read before going to sleep at night, and a book you dip into when you on the loo.

The other is the one I mentioned earlier, where you use an easy book to push and pull you through a more demanding one, so you've got to read the more demanding one to find out what happens next in the easier one. It also has the advantage of stretching out reading experience for the easier one.

There are a lot of books where there really can be quite an effort getting into them, and yet that effort is worth it, and once you are properly into them they take over. It's a bit like using tinder and twigs to start a log fire. The tinder and the twigs wouldn't keep you warm at night, but you can't just put a match to a log and set it blazing.

Of course, to extend that analogy, these days we are rather.. used to just turning on the gas...

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Gulliver
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 05:50 PM

Yeah, I do that too--no wonder I can never get anything published!

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 06:08 PM

Can't set a log blazing with just a match, huh? Can I chop it into a fuzzstick, soak it in kerosene, and then light the match?

For a long time I've wanted to take all the books that haven't sold in eight or nine booksales* (held by the Friends of the Library), heap them up someplace safe, and burn them. I'd send out invitations to all the anti-censorship people inviting then to the First Annual Library Book Burning.

But I won't.


*Stuff like the textbooks you used in high school, outdated technical manuals, outdated medical texts, and so on.

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Wolfgang
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 06:16 PM

I nearly always read three books in parallel and if one is finished it is replaced by another of the same kind:
One is invariably easy to read fiction (crime, for instance. At this moment, a Mankell book.
The next is about parasciences, sometimes pro, mostly contra. At this time, it is a book about parapsychology.
The third is either a science book or political nonfiction. At this time, the third is a book about Al Quaeda.

A fourth book is only added, if it is a book that I do not read each page of, like for instance a new songbook.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Gurney
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 07:10 PM

Usually I have at least two books going. One of them often is a familiar one that I may have read several times, and I find it calms me to re-read familiar books, when I need it.

I have a library of 'familiar' books going back 40 years.


Takes all sorts to make a world, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 03:58 AM

Gurney - I'm the same. I cannot bear to read a book just once. I like to be able to go back and read it again and again - there's one particular author that I read on an annual basis (Susan Cooper - Dark is rising sequence) and consequently our house is mostly furnished with bookshelves.

I do deplore Manitas' habit of buying a book without checking if we already have it - we have 3 copies of one novel!

How the heck I got into reading so much I don't know... most of my colleagues have never so much as cracked the spine of a hardback and are amazed when I finish a book in under a week. One colleague proudly announced that her present book was the quickest she'd ever read - only 3 months in and nearly finished.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 06:56 AM

I had a similar experience at the supermarket, Liz - she saw the book in my carry bag & started chatting. She read a book in 2 weeks, it was so good! I didn't say I was reading 1 a day - but they were very easy murders. Read & forget books.

I borrow different categories of library book - some I get for the pictures only, usually social histories, or art books & hardly even look at the text, others are reference (like craft books), others are light time fillers, others are such heavy stuff that my brain sez "no, I wanna look at pictures!"

I'd love to buy more books but have very full bookshelves & very little space left, the new Harry Potter will just fit on the Harry Potter shelf.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 08:45 AM

the new Harry Potter will just fit on the Harry Potter shelf.

Given the length JK Rowling has written the last few, and each one longer, are you sure?

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 09:31 AM

ya got me worried there, McGrath, so I measured the space by moving the second-last volume (the biggest) into the space & it just fits. phew.

Surely the latest volume can't be bigger?

Anyway, I can move one series of Andre Norton books to the shelf below which contains most of her books cos there is room for it.

Told ya I had very little space in my bookshelves!

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Jack Campin
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 11:30 AM

I work part-time in a bookshop and I often see interesting simultaneous purchases. People buying theology and erotica is quite routine. The best I've seen yet was the woman who came to the counter with _The "Relate" Guide to Relationship Repair_ and _The SAS Handbook of Unarmed Combat_. I wondered which she was going to try first.

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Helen
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 07:43 PM

Sandra,

I also have a collection of Andre Norton books. I haven't read them for at least 20 years, but I enjoyed every one of them. I stopped reading fantasy & sci-fi about then and I think I'm about to get back into it again.

I've been recommending some of my favourite authors to the work colleague who is now the owner of the Godel, Escher & Bach book. Now I am starting to get the urge to re-read some of them. (Ursula Le Guin, CJ Cherryh, Louise Cooper, Alan Garner, Lloyd Alexander, etc etc.)

Oh,I forgot, I am also halfway through TH White's The Once & Future King - a satisfyingly deep book, once you get past the deceptively light first section.

I don't really have a system to choose which books to read at any particular time, but I have a large collection, mostly secondhand, and I am never short of a book (or three) to choose.

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 09:31 PM

I choose a book to read by what is going round my head. I'll remember a phrase or a description from a book and then have to read that book to get it out of my head again. Often, if that book is one of a series, I'll read the rest of them too. Giving me a book and saying 'you must read this' is a sure way of making me put it on a shelf and forget about it for a year.

Has anyone else made amazing discoveries in '3 for the price of 2' book offers? Many of our local book chains (Waterstones, Borders, the other one no-one remembers...) have these offers and me being me, can never resist them. I'll always manage to find 2 books I've wanted but never 3. Consequently, there has to be a 'default' book:~ the book that normally I wouldn't buy but as it's free, I'll take it. That's how I discovered C J Sansom, who writes Tudor crime novels, rich in language and historical detail. 'Sovereign' was my default book a few weeks ago and has turned out to be a wonderful find. I've since acquired the other two in the series and enjoyed them just as much. Elizabeth Lovell was another such default book. Again, a crime writer, she sets her tales in small town America and has such incredible descriptive passages as to make me want to live there (when the murderers have been apprehended...).

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Celtaddict
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 11:38 PM

I generally have several going at once, but not usually to 'help' me move on through the more challenging. I do sometimes have books on related topics going. There is no real pattern but usually a broad assortment, and I am lucky enough to be a fast reader so rarely spend over a few days on one, even with several going. I love to re-read books I enjoyed, too.

Currently:
Innocent Traitor, a fictionalized life of Lady Jane Grey
A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
Glory Road, Robert A. Heinlein
Benjamin Franklin
Magical Melons, more stories about the kids in Caddie Woodlawn
Leonardo's Swans, another history-based novel
When a Loose Cannon Flogs a Dead Horse, There's the Devil to Pay, about nautical expressions that made it into everyday speech
The Robe (a favorite from when I was a kid)
Iceland
At Swim-Two-Birds
John Mitchel's Jail Journal
Pocket History of Scotland (for someone with big sturdy pockets!)
Death of the Heart, a weird little psychological novel from 1939 I picked up as a bonus at a used book counter.

No one in my family goes anywhere without books on hand; who knows, you might get stuck in traffic or something.

By the way, I loved Godel, Escher, Back, the Eternal Golden Braid, and think Douglas Hofstadter is fascinating, so I think it interesting that so many here seem to have found it heavy going.

Authors I re-read regularly as relaxation include Dorothy Dunnett, Tony Hillerman, Ellis Peters, Bill Bryson, Robert A. Heinlein.

I did once wind up reading Gravity's Rainbow and Ulysses at the same time. This I do not recommend.

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 04:06 AM

Helen, over a number of years before her death in 2005 Andre Norton completed some of her of old series with collaborators.

Some of her old books were re-issued in omnibus volumes, sometimes with the new titles which were added to the series.

I decided which series I wanted, & ended up buying quite a few books, old & new, & now have a tall pile of unwanted books to sell, one day, maybe. Some of these old books have much more interesting covers than the new ones, but I can't keep them as the are piled up beside my sewing machine & take up room.

Andre Norton website

Fantastic Fiction for a list of all her books

Are you aware that Earthsea has been continued? It now has 5 volumes & a set of short stories.

I must re-read Once & Future king again - one day.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Grab
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 11:28 AM

Unusually for me, I'm down to one book in progress - a book of Scottish folk tales transcribed from recordings of the source storytellers. But that's because I've just finished "Never let me go" by Kazuo Ishiguro, a couple of PD Jameses and a Nevil Shute which were going on at the same time...

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: HouseCat
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 12:40 PM

In my younger days (before I turned 40) I always kept at least 3 books going at once but now I have to limit myself to one at a time or I get confused.:~0 I'm reading through all my Jane Austens this summer, and waiting for Harry (Potter, that is.)
HC

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 19 Jun 07 - 11:33 AM

Usually two books: one in bus and train when going to or coming from work (Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories); in bed (Taciti Germania); in the bathroom I'm occasionally browsing one of my song books when constipated. Today I read a thesis about the Hessian Volunteers of 1815 during lunch break.

And Rapaire - as a librarian thou shalt not read books but work in the library!

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: beardedbruce
Date: 19 Jun 07 - 11:45 AM

I keep 4 or 5 going- Have to have a few wherever I am.


Rapaire:
"all the books that haven't sold in eight or nine booksales*"

Only because I didn't know about them/wasn't able to get there/can't afford them.

I have never let a lack of space prevent me from getting a book I thought was worth reading. (as several people on Mudcat can attest)


"outdated technical manuals" !!! THOSE are priceless! Almost as hard to locate as software manuals for antique* computers!




*I mean over 3 years old, but today's standard is more like 6 months...

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: MMario
Date: 19 Jun 07 - 12:17 PM

I usually have a number in the process of being read:

One on the nightstand; One in the bathroom; one in the car "just in case"; (if going on a trip, one per DAY stashed in the car); one in the living room.

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Becca72
Date: 19 Jun 07 - 01:01 PM

My OCD allows me to only read one at a time (I tend to be very "order" oriented) and I carry it with me everywhere, just in case I'm stuck in a waiting room, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Grab
Date: 19 Jun 07 - 01:12 PM

Oops - back up to two again ("Sense and sensibility")...

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: mrdux
Date: 19 Jun 07 - 06:47 PM

I have never let a lack of space prevent me from getting a book I thought was worth reading.

Nor have I.

My wife, on the other hand, has way different ideas about the appropriate use of space, firmly believing that it's possible to have enough books already. This has been an ongoing topic of negotiation . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Jun 07 - 04:25 PM

I was at a jumble sale one time and I overheard a conversation: "Want to have a look at the books?" "No, I've got a book."

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 20 Jun 07 - 09:35 PM

years ago I gave my friend's young children books cos they had a shopaholic mother & relatives all over the country & consequently far too many toys#

The family's books lived on half a shelf in the living room & most of these books were cookbooks! I don't think they would have had any books if it wasn't for me. Dunno fi they read them tho, but I still gave 'em books.

Sandra

# - tis so, cos they had toys in each bedroom & the family room, & kept the toys they didn't play with on top of baby's built-in wardrobe.

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: Helen
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 10:36 AM

McGrath of H,

Years ago I was trying to make polite conversation with someone, trying to find some common ground. At the time I was a librarian, so books were my life at work and at home. When I asked him if he read books he took a while to answer, then brightened and said: "I read a book once, a fishing book. It was a fishing magazine."

Nice bloke, but no common ground there.

I can't imagine reaching the stage of saying that I have "enough books already". I was down to my last few cents at one stage and had to see what I could sell. I actually sold some books, but I could only find a boxful which I could bear to part with.

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 04:17 PM

Going down the charity shop is no good. I just come away with more books.

It's an addiction all right, buying books. So is reading them, but that's a slightly different addiction.

As a kid it was down to library all the time and come away with a bunch of books. In fact that's probably where the habit of reading several books at a time actually would have started. These days the libraries seem to have sold off most of their books worth reading. Largely to me. It amazes me what they discard.

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: beardedbruce
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 04:32 PM

Any book worth reading is worth owning.

Besides, I have more volumes that interest me than ( most) libraries do.

Subject: RE: BS: Reading books in parallel
From: MBSLynne
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 03:09 AM

My son went on an exchange visit to Germany and brought me back "The Hobbit" in German, so I read that in the kitchen while having breakfast. It's taking me quite a while!

Love Lynne