. We can all keep up with several soaps at once, plus serialised TV productions. No problem. But I've often wondered if people have more than one book on the go at a time. Never heard of it, and never done it. (And I don't mean a novel and a text book - two or more novels.)
I typically have one book at work (for lunchtime reading), and at least one book at home that I'm reading. More than three is a problem though. I think the difference between books and TV (for me anyway) is the lack of visual and audio cues - we see the character, hear the theme music, the voices, and we 'click' with the storyline. With books, I may have to glance back to remember who's doing what to whom and why - but then I'm good.
I used to be able to do this when I was a kid, but I rarely do it now. I much prefer to get through one book before starting another. Just recently, I was annoyed because I had to stop the book I was reading in order to read a book for my book club. (I'd messed up the timing, and thought I could finish the book I wanted to read before reading the book club book, but didn't account for the Passover and Easter stuff we were doing -- cooking, cleaning, travelling, seeing family, so I did not get anywhere near as far in my first book.) I could see doing it if the books were vastly different -- particularly if one were a novel and one were some sort of non-fiction book (which I usually prefer anyway). But I think it could get difficult with two novels.
I tend to read 2-3 novels at a time. What I choose to read depends on my mood, so it's nice to have options.
I have two novels on the go now, but I doubt I could manage a third. The two I'm reading are pretty challenging and dense, and I'm reading both partly to study technique. A third would be just too much.
I can't juggle more than one book, but sometimes I'll read a short story from a collection while still in the midst of a novel. I think when you're reading one book, you're going into that world for the long haul so it can be disconcerting if you're reading another novel and another world at the same time. Also, you run the risk of forgetting something from earlier in the plot when you do multitask.
I'm reading thirteen books right now. The percentage of novels is unusually low at the moment, but I am reading three.
I often read two or more novels in parallel, and nonfiction/textbooks as well. Lately, with Kindle on multiple devices, I have more of a tendency to read one novel at a time, syced across all my devices, but I still haven't settled to one at a time. I usually have at least one print novel in parallel.
Thread moved - it's better suited to Book Discussion. I generally only have one novel on the go, but I'll often have a couple of short story collections on the go in tandem. I'm also considering starting to have a history book on the go at the same time. For me, it makes it easier to follow a book and keep mental notes about what's going on stylistically - this being somewhat undermined by my propensity to read a couple of novels a week.
Unless I pick up a novel and find it such a page-turner that I'm too enthralled to put it down, I'll often read several books at once. There are too many stories I could miss, and I'm impatient. The moment I feel my interest in a chapter ebb, I put the book down and pick up another. This also saves me from idling out of finishing the novels I start -- keeps them fresher, when I pick them back up.
