Several Books at Once vs Focusing Your Energy on One Book

[Desolation]

At the moment, I'm reading War & Peace, and given the length of the book, I'm considering taking breaks from it to read other books. On the one hand, it makes a novel of that length seem less (for lack of a better word) tedious...Plus, I would like to take my time getting through the work, and give myself an opportunity to live inside of it for a while. But, on the other, I think it might be best to read straight through to keep the characters and plot-lines fresh in mind.

Anyways, all this made me wander how other users here prefer to read. Do you like to read several books at once, or do you like to read one at a time? What do you personally find more fulfilling, especially when it comes to longer/more difficult novels?

[Big Dante]

For something of that length there is no harm in reading multiple things at a time.
I'm currently reading Les Misérbles which is another long novel but I am breaking it up with the Sherlock Holmes short stories and other shorter novels which I find effective.
It really depends on what you prefer.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Well, I think what you describe is still reading one book at a time. You're just taking a break from a long book and reading something else. You're not reading them simultaneously. I'm doing the same thing with Don Quixote. Read the first half, and am now reading a fantasy novel, which once completed I will finish DQ (though, DQ being a picaresque novel, I don't really have the plot predicament you do with War and Peace). To me, reading more than one book at a time would mean reading one book one day, reading the other the next, not trying to complete one before resuming another.

Personally, I can't read more than one book at a time. Frankly, the idea of doing so is appalling. I used to with school, as in reading an assigned text at the same time as reading whatever I was reading for pleasure, but I no longer do that. One reason is that my studies have come to the point that require my full attention on whatever text is assigned. And, I just hate doing it. I'll take a break from whatever pleasure reading I am doing, and read the whole assigned text, usually completing it much faster than my classmates since I'm not starting and stopping as deadlines dictate.

The only exception is if I am reading a graphic novel or comic books. I can read those and a book at the same time without much problem, though I still rarely do.

[Jozanny]

I have roughly 15 texts going of various degrees of difficulty. I used to be more conservative, but academic texts take time, especially if I am making notes with the long view for a paper, and I too take breaks from Dumas, or the damn Russians, and I am old, and in a hurry. I do not count poets in this, basically, as I rarely read poets sequentially and far fewer of my contemporaries than I used to; depends on your reading comprehension. Genre authors I tend to spit and chew unless they are science fiction, and only very good science fiction.

[cyberbob]

When I buy books, I usually buy many at once. It's usually a mixture of relatively long and relatively short books.

I'll either read a short book as a respite in between long books, or I'll take a break from a long book and read something else.

I do occasionally read several books simultaneously, although I rarely do so with novels because, like with movies, it bugs me to start-stop-start with a story.

[Clockdeth]

I would not go father than two books at once, as far as what you read personally or for entertainment. One fiction, with a non-fiction (depending on its criteria and the relevance held with your own interpretation of the fictional piece), may provide better insight.

[Jassy Melson]

It's interesting to me that before I retired and was still working, I read two or more books on the same day. But now, since I'm retired and have more time for reading, I am reading less. I stick with one book at a time. I'm currently reading Thomas Wolfe's Of Time and the River. It is, to me, an exhausting book to read because it is so condensed and dreamlike. Wolfe was a poetic novelist, and I find that I need to reread some of the passages in the book before I go on reading the novel. This makes for a slow read. I've been reading the book for two months and I am still not finished. I have twenty more sections to read through before I am done. Each section is the length of an average chapter, so it's going to take me about seven more days to finish it. It's a great novel, but it sure is a long one! Some would say it's long-winded too.

[lichtrausch]

At any given time I am usually working through two books. I do it just for the sake of variety. I like to read one non-fiction and one fiction book.

[L.M. The Third]

Occasionally I'll be absorbed in one book, but I'll more often have three or four texts that I'm dipping into regularly. I usually only have one novel on the go at a time, and the others could be history, poetry, biography, criticism, religion, etc.

[AlfredtheGreat]

My system is three at a time: one novel, one non-fiction/poetry and one on history.

[kasie]

As I've just suggested a simultaneous reading of the two titles that tied in the February Book Club Forum, I suppose I'd better say I read more than one book at a time! I often do but as other posters have suggested, I find it better to have different kinds of books running side by side. I usually have a fiction alongside a non-fiction book.

I don't think I'd suggest taking too long a break from W&P - you could well forget who all the characters are.

[stlukesguild]

I almost always have multiple books going on at one time. I don't see the difficulty any more than if I were to read the postings on the net, the newspaper, a magazine or anything else while part-way through a book. I understand Edgar Allen Poe's argument for shorter literature (short stories, poems) as a means of assuring that the experience of a work of literature were not interrupted and the emotions could be maintained... and in some way I agree, which may account for my preference for short stories, poetry, and other literary works that may be experienced in a single setting. Seriously, however, there's no way that I can read Paradise Lost, The Divine Comedy, War and Peace, In Search of Lost Time, etc... in a single sitting and I don't find the experiences of reading other books any less or more intrusive to the reading experience than the breaks from reading demanded by any other of my life's demands.

[Lokasenna]

I like to have several books on the go at once, but in different styles. Because reading forms the basis of my work, I like to have other reading that I can go to that is increasingly further away from my core area. So my levels are thus:

1. An early medieval Norse-Icelandic text (at the moment, Flótsdaela saga).

2. A different medieval text (at the moment, Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur).

3. A text which isn't medieval (at the moment, Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward).

4. A non-fiction text (at the moment, Theodore Dalrymple's Not with a Bang, but a Whimper: The Politics and Culture of Decline).

I find this a really good system. This way, I always have a book to suit my mood, but don't get lost amongst a plethora of similar texts.

[LitNetIsGreat]

It's up to you do whatever seems right for you - there are no rules.

Personally I have several things on the go at once and read them at different times. At the moment I have about 4/5 history/politics books on the go, two novels, extracts of things for uni and I tend to read a couple of poems just before bed. When uni is out of the way this will reduce and I will have at most 2/3 works on the go I think. In the past I always used to read one at a time but I'm unlikely to do that again. Read to suit I think.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

; depends on your reading comprehension.

I could very well be misinterpreting what you meant with this statement Jozanny, but are you saying that only those with a high reading comprehension read multiple books at a time? I agree you have to have a high reading comprehension to do so, but for me, one book at a time is just personal preference.

3. A text which isn't medieval (at the moment, Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward).

Love that story. Really creeped me out.