How many books do you read at a time?

Since I'm now retired, I read twice as much as before. I read on one novel in the morning and one in the afternoon, as well as read short stories and articles--every day.

thats an interesting question :) like it :) since its about reading books...
well usually when i get books that are new i would be too excited with , i read a half and hour of each and place a book marker in each ...and would carry on everyday .
I dont like sticking to one book as i am greedy when it comes to know.

:) love this question :)

It's one at a time for me! I find I can't focus properly if I've got too many on the go at once.

I got a "schoolbook" that's always a play for you can read plays better while walking than novels and it is easier to interrupt and later on continue the reading, right now I'm also reading a book for school (the kite runner), a thriller and paradise lost (that'll take a while since I can't have more than 5 pages of it a day - I love it but it's like dark red wine, too much of it is fatal)
and of course some short stories, such as those from Poe and Ronald Dahl...
so that would be 4 real books and the short stories at a time .. and I never had any problems with mixing up stories (didn't even have problems with reading Pynchon and King at a time ... )
but I always do lot's of things parallel... so I guess that's part of my nature:D

I tend to feel guilty if I read more than one book at a time. It seems like infidelity if I can't devote myself entirely to one book. Besides, while reading a novel, I tend to take on similar behaviors and thought pattern to that of the protagonist, and I have no intention of developing multiple personalities. :lol: But of course, short stories and poetry are fair game any day of the week.

ok, I might start adjusting my one at a time attitude, because as I am an incredibly slow reader and one who does not like non-fiction as a main, I should start doing things differently...

I already have! I read an edited version of Mrs Favell Lee Mortimer's guides to foreign countries. Incredibly Victorian! :lol: The woman never went anywhere apart from Edingburgh and Paris in her teens, yet wrote about about all countries in the world... No wonder her views were a little clouded, certainly in combination with a religious-based hatred of Catholics! :lol: It was a good laugh, though. When waiting for my hubby, it did the trick, because tere was no plot!

I read two short stories in between The Mill on the Floss. One of Joyce because I wanted to see what the fuss is about (wasn't very impressed) and then one of Woolf which was much better.

And now, for the first time in years I have started on something non-fiction (if we don't count Mrs Mortimer), because I find that one should still learn. No learning without non-fiction :(. So I decided to try it like that.

I'll have to read Milton and Chaucer also as an in betweeny, because you can't just have oo much...

It all depends on the book I'm reading and on how much spare time I have.
For example, when I decided to start reading Dostoevskij's Crime & Punishment I focused on that single novel till I finished it. Some novels just can't be neglected.

But there are times when I easily manage to read two or three books at the same time (like now, for example :D )

Definitely one at a time; I can't imagine tearing myself from one book to be sucked into another. Patience. :)

just one. I even think it is beneficial to let a few days pass before reading the next one - to let the last one sink in and rattle around your head a little

Oh I feel like such an awful person in admitting that I sometimes read more than five books at a time, including short story and poetry anthologies :( It was a hard time to get myself to that point, for I couldn't help but inexplicitly feel that I committing literary infidelity when I would read multiple works at once.

Since I am by nature very curious person, who usually have long readlists of mustreads, I too do read more than one book at a time. But I'm trying not to read more than two books at the same time, because the day has only twenty four hours (unfortunately!), and my mind is not that big to absorb a large quantity of information all at once :hand:
So I often write diaries about what I read, short notes about the plot, characters and their characteristics. It keeps me from forgetting what I read in longer period of time, and also helps me to excercise my expression.
We used to do that kind of thing back in elementary school, a good habit I adopted from my early youth :willy_nilly:

Usually anywhere from one to four. Right now I have three books on my bed: Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell; a book of essays on writing; and a humor book by Dave Barry, because I was feeling down yesterday and I needed to laugh before I could sleep.

In addition to the books I'm reading at any given time, I read magazines almost obsessively. I subscribe to nine magazines (I think ... I haven't counted recently and I'm terrible at letting subscriptions lapse).

It depends a lot on length and interest level. For instance, last week I blazed through Moby Dick in 4 days. I'm not sure why exactly- the middle bits were every bit as dragging as I'd heard- but I simply wanted to be done with it quickly. I wasn't reading anything else simultaneously. But this week I started For Whom the Bell Tolls. I was hooked- for about 200 pages. Since then the conceit has worn off and its seemed to drag enormously. So I picked up Wuthering Heights and The Tempest. So I was reading three things at a time. Now I've finished The Tempest so I'm reading two. I don't seem to have much trouble keeping plot-lines separate. I pay a lot of attention to style and when I remember a story I'm remembering it almost with the style intact. Confusing Shakespeare with Hemmingway is unthinkable stylistically. Now, if I'd been reading Moby Dick and The Tempest at the same time...that might have been odd. I probably wouldn't have attempted it.

As a rule of thumb, for fiction, I'd say that if a book is very long (500 plus pages) and very interesting I focus exclusively on that book for a time (Middlemarch, Tess of D'urbervilles, Anna Karenina), mainly because I really do start to lose track of plot-lines if I'm spending more than a week with a book without coming to a conclusion (somehow endings always "firm up" things for me). If it's short (175-300 pages) and interesting I'll probably read it along with a few other books (Silas Marner, The Mayor of Casterbridge). Everything else I sort of decide as I go along.

None of this applies to non-fiction. I'm almost always reading something non-fiction and don't really worry about how many other books I'm juggling unless the subjects are too similar.

Usually two, or three. I find it enjoyable to read totally contrasting books. A war novel against a love story. For some reason this works for me.

I read about three books on a time if I go for depth, 5 or 6 if I go for aesthetic value.