Booking Through Thursday asks:
Some people read one book at a time. Some people have a number of them on the go at any given time, perhaps a reading in bed book, a breakfast table book, a bathroom book, and so on, which leads me to…
- Are you currently reading more than one book?
- If so, how many books are you currently reading?
- Is this normal for you?
- Where do you keep your current reads?
And here are my answers:
1. Yes.
2. Three
3. Yes.
4. On the floor next to the bed, in my car and on the table in my office.
I usually have more than one book going. I almost always have a "hard" book that I work on slowly and an "easy" read that goes in my car and to work with me. Right now my "hard" book is Anna Karenina, which is hard only because it is so long - and I have to say that it is unusual for me to take so long to finish a novel. I still have 300 pages to go and I've been reading it off and on since September. It isn't that I don't like it. It is just so darn heavy! Usually at some point I get so deep into a novel that I start to carry it around with me even though it is the "hard" book. But this one gives me a backache. I think, though, that I'm going to take it to jury duty with me on Monday.
My current easy read is Babylon Sisters which also happens to be my Reading Group book this month. After starting it I realized it was perfect to carry around with me. That doesn't always happen with Reading Group books, sometimes they need more concentration. In months when that happens I pick a different book as the "easy" read and read the Reading Group book at home (and put Anna aside - you see how it goes.)
Then I sometimes have books going that don't need to be read all at once because there is no narrative. Right now it is Billy Collins' Ballistics but it might be a book of essays or a book of non-fiction that isn't in narrative form. Sometimes the non-fiction is also the "easy" read - the ease existing in short chapters that can be read at lunchtime. I also sometimes have a history book going - one of my hobbies is French colonial history and I pick up books in that subject that tend toward the academic. They can be read in small chunks as the spirit moves me. For instance I just ordered a new book about the French records at Michilimackinac which will probably include lots of lists - which I can work through at my own pace.
Then there are the "interrupting" books - I pick up a book at the library (usually a book in a mystery series I'm reading) and just drop everything else and read it until I'm finished. (That's happened a lot in the last month with the Laura Lippman books.)
You?
