I have mentioned many times on this blog that I am a one-book-at-a-time kind of reader. I pick one book, I read it until it's finished, and then I pick up another one. And I've never been any other kind of reader - through childhood and college, this was the way I would read.
And yet, I'm discovering there are situations where reading two books at once can be useful (I'm not sure I could handle more than two quite yet!). About a month ago, I picked up The Little Book by Selden Edwards. I loved the first fifty pages so much that I knew this would be a book I wanted to savor and read slowly. And then the next day, we had a snow day, which usually involves a lot of time spent reading. Since I didn't want to rush through The Little Book, I set it aside and picked up The Tale of Applebeck Orchard by Susan Wittig Albert. It was the perfect book to read curled up in my library during my snow day. So sometimes having a book to savor and a book to zoom through works for me.
The second situation came up last week. My book club decided to read In the Woods by Tana French as our selection for March. Murder mysteries are one of the last genres I would ever choose to read, but how could I just skip out on a book club book? So I read In the Woods during daylight hours, and switched over to Grace (Eventually) by Anne Lamott once it got dark outside. It worked perfectly. I got through my scary book without a single nightmare.
So I guess I can't always say I'm a one-book-at-a-time kind of reader anymore. Turns out reading two books at once can occasionally work for me.
And yet, I'm discovering there are situations where reading two books at once can be useful (I'm not sure I could handle more than two quite yet!). About a month ago, I picked up The Little Book by Selden Edwards. I loved the first fifty pages so much that I knew this would be a book I wanted to savor and read slowly. And then the next day, we had a snow day, which usually involves a lot of time spent reading. Since I didn't want to rush through The Little Book, I set it aside and picked up The Tale of Applebeck Orchard by Susan Wittig Albert. It was the perfect book to read curled up in my library during my snow day. So sometimes having a book to savor and a book to zoom through works for me.
The second situation came up last week. My book club decided to read In the Woods by Tana French as our selection for March. Murder mysteries are one of the last genres I would ever choose to read, but how could I just skip out on a book club book? So I read In the Woods during daylight hours, and switched over to Grace (Eventually) by Anne Lamott once it got dark outside. It worked perfectly. I got through my scary book without a single nightmare.
So I guess I can't always say I'm a one-book-at-a-time kind of reader anymore. Turns out reading two books at once can occasionally work for me.
How about you? Are you a bookish monogamist? Or do you have lots of books going at once?
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