How lovely to read such a defense of this way of reading. I've often been called scatter-brained or a slow reader, but I've always read multiple books at once! At the moment I have a book on ancient Chinese spycraft as well as Machiavelli (which feed each other very well), an intensive biography of Vlad Dracul, and an English soldier's account of hiding from the Nazis in a Dutch farm house. And on the fiction side, there's Tolkien's Silmarillion, Vodalazhkin's A History of the Island, and T.H. White's The Once and Future King. It takes a lot longer to get through everything but for a lot of the reasons you mentioned, this is the only way I could ever read. Virginia Woolf had a lovely way of putting it: "I am reading six books at once, the only way of reading; since, as you will agree, one book is only a single unaccompanied note, and to get the full sound, one needs ten others at the same time."
Yes! They do feed each other. I love how you put it. And I love that Woolf quote as well. Perfect. Reading multiple books is like striking a chord on the guitar or piano.
I used to be a firm believer in one book at a time, but as I got older I came to see the benefits of a varied reading diet. Right now I have 3 going: a new read, a reread, and a religious text. It’s saved me a lot of anxiety about picking the “next book” because I don’t feel bad about rereading an on book when I have so many unread ones, or reading a fiction book when I “should” be reading a theological text.
I like that balance. It’s a great way to fight the “should be reading” thing. You get the balance you need while still making progress on other, possibly more challenging books.
I always have multiple books going on simultaneously too. Curse of a curious mind I suppose. Current reads: a popular novel for our book club, books on cultural upheaval to understand our time, spiritual reading to ground me, a middle grade graphic novel, and we're listening to Kidnapped in the car.
I am grateful for my liberal arts education. I'm studying Latin for the first time at 58. My high school daughter thinks I'm crazy and my husband is used to it. I just read Kristin Lavransdatter earlier this year. I hope you write about it!
Yes! And I’m definitely reviewing Lavransdatter. And soon. I picked The Wreath for my classic novel goal and assumed I could just read and review that alone. But it’s too much of a cliffhanger. I moved onto the second, which I just finished. I’ll be reading the third this weekend and week and hope to review the book next weekend.
I just read Lavransdatter last month! I had never even heard of it before a couple of months ago after reading Laxness’ Salka Valka and Independent People. I was blown away by it. Looking forward to your take on it.
Sounds like we have very similar approaches. One other thing I work into my reading rotation is poetry. I just read one poem a night, Donne, Herbert, Scott, or Q. And of course, I always read through the Bible every year.
I love the idea of reading a poem each night. I do that from time to time and keep poetry on my bedside table for just that purpose, but I don’t have a regular practice.
I used to be a one at a time reader, but probably post-college started to read multiple at a time and haven't looked back since! That's also when I started DNFing books, which really helps my momentum. I tend to have at least one non-fiction and one fiction going. Sometimes a couple non-fiction simultaneously, for instance a memoir and a slightly more academic text. I do find it difficult to read multiple novels at the same time but since I'm in two book clubs, sometimes needs must.
It seems like your crowd here is polygamous in their reading habits as am I. Life is far too short for only one book at a time. Thankfully I am a very fast reader which helps me get through a lot of material.
I always have a nonfiction book for my morning read because that's when I will absorb new ideas easier and a novel for the evening. My fiction books fluctuate between more serious literature and easy, light reading. As the world has seemed to get more challenging and heavier I find myself needing a bit of a fluffy read, as in nothing bad can happen, as a distraction or for pure entertainment. However, then I give myself a shake, remind myself I am an intelligent adult who deserves more than fluff, and reach for some depth. I also often have random other books on the go at the same time but always those two for sure.
I like the idea of reading differently per time of the day, especially with the rationale of greater attention/concentration available to you earlier in the morning.
I am so glad to read such praise for having multiple books on the go at once. I got into the habit of bouncing between several books since I learned to read and got access to the wonderful world of libraries, but I quickly realised that other readers around me thought it strange. You've put into words all the reasons I've stuck with this habit over the years and I especially love the idea of being a polygamous reader!
I tend to have a mix of books that need different levels of mental energy/attention. I like combining non-fictions and classic novels with something lighter so I can move between words that I want to fully absorb and words that I can just allow to flow over me.
A great post, Joel. Life's too short to read one book at a time. I like to read according to my mood, and interest at the time. At the moment I'm reading "How Words Get Good", The Anomaly, a Fran Leibowitz reader, plus books of Irish, Scottish, Welsh and Australian short stories -- and soon I will be receiving a survey of fiction books and writers called Retroland. I mean that's what the book is called, not the writers.
What a great but unsurprising coincidence! I think it's written really nicely, don't you? Loads of information but delivered by a spoon rather than a trowel, with anecdotes, asides and humour
Yes, totally unsurprising. I bet there’s a lot of overlap between our tastes and interests. And yes on the style. I also love the scope of the book. As someone who worked in publishing for over a decade, it’s fun to read a soup-to-nuts look at the process of making a book.
I’m always reading more than one book at a time. People don’t watch only one television series until it’s complete: why should that apply to reading books?
Thanks for this! I’ve often felt a weird sense of guilt for juggling multiple books based on people who say that’s the “wrong way” to read. I tend to balance several non fiction books on specific technical topics with one novel (it does take my mind more effort to remember plots and character details than hard facts).
The fracturing of attention argument has been all but blown to bits by the era of perpetual phone use and social media. Reading a few long form books is still 100x the focus of alternative media diets.
I’ve done some experimenting with this this year. I had six books going at once at one point. I found that the snails-pace it brought me to in each book was demotivating, along with the nearly overwhelming impulse each time I picked up a book up - didn’t matter which - to put it down and pick up one of the others that also needed some pages turned.
In the end I think the multi-book approach has been good for many of the reasons you’ve mentioned above (two books in particular, by different authors and a decade between publishing, now have marginalia referring to the other throughout), I just know now that my threshold is lower than six. And I also need the little “wins” (where “win” is defined as “finishing a book”) to keep me moving forward. It had taken me four months to get through 95 pages of a book, but in nine days I got through the remaining 160, and now I feel a burst of enthusiasm to read some others.
Maintaining momentum is an important factor, along with that psychic boost of finishing. I should say that I rarely read more than five at a time; I’m usually in the three to four range.
That’s a great point. I bet the folks that read just one book at a time have no trouble interspersing it with magazines and websites. What’s the difference?
For me, it’s a patience issue more than anything else. At my most disciplined, I rarely am able to take the time to read more than 50pp a day, and usually fewer. I enjoy reading longer novels, which at the pace can run 3+ weeks. Spreading that out even longer to read another book or two is just too taxing on my patience for a single book.
How lovely to read such a defense of this way of reading. I've often been called scatter-brained or a slow reader, but I've always read multiple books at once! At the moment I have a book on ancient Chinese spycraft as well as Machiavelli (which feed each other very well), an intensive biography of Vlad Dracul, and an English soldier's account of hiding from the Nazis in a Dutch farm house. And on the fiction side, there's Tolkien's Silmarillion, Vodalazhkin's A History of the Island, and T.H. White's The Once and Future King. It takes a lot longer to get through everything but for a lot of the reasons you mentioned, this is the only way I could ever read. Virginia Woolf had a lovely way of putting it: "I am reading six books at once, the only way of reading; since, as you will agree, one book is only a single unaccompanied note, and to get the full sound, one needs ten others at the same time."
Yes! They do feed each other. I love how you put it. And I love that Woolf quote as well. Perfect. Reading multiple books is like striking a chord on the guitar or piano.
I used to be a firm believer in one book at a time, but as I got older I came to see the benefits of a varied reading diet. Right now I have 3 going: a new read, a reread, and a religious text. It’s saved me a lot of anxiety about picking the “next book” because I don’t feel bad about rereading an on book when I have so many unread ones, or reading a fiction book when I “should” be reading a theological text.
I like that balance. It’s a great way to fight the “should be reading” thing. You get the balance you need while still making progress on other, possibly more challenging books.
I always have multiple books going on simultaneously too. Curse of a curious mind I suppose. Current reads: a popular novel for our book club, books on cultural upheaval to understand our time, spiritual reading to ground me, a middle grade graphic novel, and we're listening to Kidnapped in the car.
I am grateful for my liberal arts education. I'm studying Latin for the first time at 58. My high school daughter thinks I'm crazy and my husband is used to it. I just read Kristin Lavransdatter earlier this year. I hope you write about it!
Here's to living bookish lives that transform us.
Yes! And I’m definitely reviewing Lavransdatter. And soon. I picked The Wreath for my classic novel goal and assumed I could just read and review that alone. But it’s too much of a cliffhanger. I moved onto the second, which I just finished. I’ll be reading the third this weekend and week and hope to review the book next weekend.
I just read Lavransdatter last month! I had never even heard of it before a couple of months ago after reading Laxness’ Salka Valka and Independent People. I was blown away by it. Looking forward to your take on it.
I was totally unfamiliar with it before starting. I’ll be finished in a few days. It’s a wonderful set of novels.
Sounds like we have very similar approaches. One other thing I work into my reading rotation is poetry. I just read one poem a night, Donne, Herbert, Scott, or Q. And of course, I always read through the Bible every year.
I love the idea of reading a poem each night. I do that from time to time and keep poetry on my bedside table for just that purpose, but I don’t have a regular practice.
I used to be a one at a time reader, but probably post-college started to read multiple at a time and haven't looked back since! That's also when I started DNFing books, which really helps my momentum. I tend to have at least one non-fiction and one fiction going. Sometimes a couple non-fiction simultaneously, for instance a memoir and a slightly more academic text. I do find it difficult to read multiple novels at the same time but since I'm in two book clubs, sometimes needs must.
The DNF thing is so liberating.
The only way I can move between novels is if they’re significantly different.
It seems like your crowd here is polygamous in their reading habits as am I. Life is far too short for only one book at a time. Thankfully I am a very fast reader which helps me get through a lot of material.
I always have a nonfiction book for my morning read because that's when I will absorb new ideas easier and a novel for the evening. My fiction books fluctuate between more serious literature and easy, light reading. As the world has seemed to get more challenging and heavier I find myself needing a bit of a fluffy read, as in nothing bad can happen, as a distraction or for pure entertainment. However, then I give myself a shake, remind myself I am an intelligent adult who deserves more than fluff, and reach for some depth. I also often have random other books on the go at the same time but always those two for sure.
I like the idea of reading differently per time of the day, especially with the rationale of greater attention/concentration available to you earlier in the morning.
I am so glad to read such praise for having multiple books on the go at once. I got into the habit of bouncing between several books since I learned to read and got access to the wonderful world of libraries, but I quickly realised that other readers around me thought it strange. You've put into words all the reasons I've stuck with this habit over the years and I especially love the idea of being a polygamous reader!
Kristen, what kind of books do you like to move between? Is there any regularity to what you keep in rotation?
I tend to have a mix of books that need different levels of mental energy/attention. I like combining non-fictions and classic novels with something lighter so I can move between words that I want to fully absorb and words that I can just allow to flow over me.
Makes total sense.
I wouldn’t have it any other way. Crop rotation!
Wonderful analogy. And you get a better harvest for your trouble :)
Exactly!
I didn't think there was another to read. Indeed, reading several things at a time inoculates one against "finish guilt."
Perfect!
A great post, Joel. Life's too short to read one book at a time. I like to read according to my mood, and interest at the time. At the moment I'm reading "How Words Get Good", The Anomaly, a Fran Leibowitz reader, plus books of Irish, Scottish, Welsh and Australian short stories -- and soon I will be receiving a survey of fiction books and writers called Retroland. I mean that's what the book is called, not the writers.
I’m dipping in and out of How Words Get Good myself :)
I think you’re right: Life is too short for reading one book at a time.
What a great but unsurprising coincidence! I think it's written really nicely, don't you? Loads of information but delivered by a spoon rather than a trowel, with anecdotes, asides and humour
Yes, totally unsurprising. I bet there’s a lot of overlap between our tastes and interests. And yes on the style. I also love the scope of the book. As someone who worked in publishing for over a decade, it’s fun to read a soup-to-nuts look at the process of making a book.
Yes re the scope. "Soup to nuts": lol, I hadn't heard that expression before!
Very aptly put out. I normally read multiple books across genres and across devices. Sharing with my book club team. Thanks.
Glad it connected. Thanks for sharing it!
I’m always reading more than one book at a time. People don’t watch only one television series until it’s complete: why should that apply to reading books?
Great analogy!
Thanks for this! I’ve often felt a weird sense of guilt for juggling multiple books based on people who say that’s the “wrong way” to read. I tend to balance several non fiction books on specific technical topics with one novel (it does take my mind more effort to remember plots and character details than hard facts).
The fracturing of attention argument has been all but blown to bits by the era of perpetual phone use and social media. Reading a few long form books is still 100x the focus of alternative media diets.
Yes, totally agree re the smartphone perspective. We’ve got bigger concentration challenges than multiple books, and we seem to cope okay regardless.
I think the important thing is that there isn’t a right or wrong way to read, just whatever works for what we need and are trying to do.
I read exactly the same way you do, for all my life, for all the reasons you stated.
Unless I was doing research for my studies, I read as my mood strikes, and most importantly, I read for JOY!
Joy is the thing: curiosity, excitement—it’s all wrapped up in that feeling.
Love this! I almost always have one fiction, one non-fic, and one audio going at a time. Keeps my reading brain nimble. :)
I should have mentioned audio! I find the change in format—and usually context—makes switching back and forth between books very easy.
I’ve done some experimenting with this this year. I had six books going at once at one point. I found that the snails-pace it brought me to in each book was demotivating, along with the nearly overwhelming impulse each time I picked up a book up - didn’t matter which - to put it down and pick up one of the others that also needed some pages turned.
In the end I think the multi-book approach has been good for many of the reasons you’ve mentioned above (two books in particular, by different authors and a decade between publishing, now have marginalia referring to the other throughout), I just know now that my threshold is lower than six. And I also need the little “wins” (where “win” is defined as “finishing a book”) to keep me moving forward. It had taken me four months to get through 95 pages of a book, but in nine days I got through the remaining 160, and now I feel a burst of enthusiasm to read some others.
Maintaining momentum is an important factor, along with that psychic boost of finishing. I should say that I rarely read more than five at a time; I’m usually in the three to four range.
Mine is three excluding newspaper and journals.
That’s a great point. I bet the folks that read just one book at a time have no trouble interspersing it with magazines and websites. What’s the difference?
For me, it’s a patience issue more than anything else. At my most disciplined, I rarely am able to take the time to read more than 50pp a day, and usually fewer. I enjoy reading longer novels, which at the pace can run 3+ weeks. Spreading that out even longer to read another book or two is just too taxing on my patience for a single book.