Books, that is. For many years, I've been a one-book-at-a-time reader, always finishing one novel (or giving up on it) before starting another one. This wasn't always the case. When I was a kid, I would often be reading three or four books at the same time and had no trouble at all remembering what was going on as I bounced from book to book, reading whichever I was in the mood for at that moment. Somewhere along the way, though, I stopped doing that.
Now, with my limited time and attention span problems that were making it difficult for me to read novels, I decided to give the old method a try again, and to my surprise, it seems to be working. I currently have three different books going. I tend to concentrate most of my reading on one of them, but I don't hesitate to pick up one of the others if the mood strikes me. In fact, one of them I'm reading as a sort of serial, a chapter a day. This isn't the way I plan to read books from now on -- I'm sure I'll go back to the one-at-a-time method sooner or later -- but for now it's been a welcome diversion.
Homestead
3 hours ago
3 comments:
I usually have one at home and one at work going at the same time, and sometimes that causes problems. I'll start reading one and the plot from the other enters my head and I have no idea what's going on. I can usually oversome this confusion after a paragraph or two. The champ of this is Frank Denton. He'll read half a dozen books at a time and limit himself to under ten pages per book before putting it down. Geeze, I hope I'm not betraying close amily secrets by telling that.
Or close FAMILY secrets, for that matter.
I was exactly the opposite of you for most of my life, really until the last few years. I would always read one book at a time and only one. Over the past 2 years my to-read pile has grown exponentially as my interests, etc. have expanded and I often have more than one going at a time. This year I've decided to have no more than 5 going at a time and to keep it at 5 and its going great. I have finished several books already in this young year and I'm staying motivated to keep up with things and also to not crack open other new things as they come my way.
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