Reading too many books at one time

I couldn't have said it better.

Yeah, I know the feeling. Even though I have many unread books I still am always on the lookout for more!

I am the WORST about half-read books. I'm like a kid... so easily distracted. Ooh look! Shiny! And I'm off starting another book. That, and I'm not always in the mood for the same thing. So right now I have about 6 or 7 half-read books on my bedside table, and then there are the countless unread books in my collection as well.... which, as I am starting to enter into LT, is looking like an embarrassingly high number overall!

jagmuse, you just described me :)! How did you do that? I just put all the ones I've started in a pile and now I'm really embarrassed.

jagmuse, readingrebecca,

I'm the same way. My mood changes like the wind. I have a lot of books I've started and have yet to finish (not to mention books I haven't even started at all!)

For a while it was all mystery so I was reading lots of Sue Graton's books and I stopped at O is for Outlaw. I read a bit of it and got bored and never finished it. Then it was sci-fi and I devoured sci-fi books and now I have several sci-fi books I have not even started reading yet, in my TBR pile. I started Atlas Shrugged and 1984 and have not gotten back to 'em yet.=)

Then I went on to reading classics after the sci-fi phase, and have just got over my classic reading phase. I completed Wuthering Heights and Emma, and I started The Brothers Karamazov and 200 pages from the conclusion I got bored and tired of all the drama. So, I decided to pick up Jane Eyre and started reading that one but I'm kind of tired of reading classics now so I stopped and now I've gotten into romance books.LOL.

Yes, it's a never-ending cycle and so I have all these never-been-read book piles and half-finished books bookmarked for when I get back to it. Good thing I haven't bought any new books.

I wish I could say the same thing booklover79 - unfortunately, I *have* bought new books, buy them all the time, because they look good, I want to read them, at some point, and I'm afraid I'll forget about them! Not to mention all the 'I've been meaning to read this' finds at booksales, etc.

My main problem is that I just don't have the time I did when I was younger, and could just disappear into a book for days, and read multiple books in a week, but I still have the same appetite, even though I don't achieve the volume I used to!

It's good to know I'm not alone in this! ;)

I don't read multiple books unless I'm reading one for a class and another for myself. (Usually, I skip ahead in the book for a class, to avoid reading multiple books at once.) Often, I can't even open a new book to read until I've slept on the one I've finished.

Okay, I'm definitely reading way too many books right now.lol. I went to the library to return books and ended up checking out 4 books. I also went to the bookstore to get this one book that just came out in paperback (2nd book of two-part series) this week. I had to get it so I went in to get that one book and I walked out with 4! I'm seeing a pattern here...=)

I told myself that I was only going to go in and purchase that particular book but it didn't happen. I got sidetracked. *sigh*

i have this problem too. although, it's not always a problem. the best way i've found to do this is to only read one *fiction* book at a time. with non-fiction, i can take my time, move between books, reading a chapter here and a chapter there, without confusing myself (er... not too much, anyway!)

I know someone who reads around five or six nonfiction books at once. Partly, this is because she looses things easily, and misplaces her books. Then, she starts another, and leaves it at work. Picks up yet another, and leaves it in her car. Etc.

Kerian, it sounds as if you know me! However, my multiple readings are not limited to nonfiction.

now see, with fiction, i'm too scatter-brained by far to keep up with more than one at a time. i remember trying it in the past, and it slaughtered me. now if there's a fiction book sitting on my shelf that i really want to get to, it just motivates me to finish reading whatever the current book is. (of course, that can be translated as "it just motivates me to procrastinate more on the work i should be doing so i can have more time to read whatever the current book is.")

Many a time I was supposed to be doing one thing but was reading instead. I used to get so upset with one of my friends about it when I was younger. She'd say I was procrastinating, and I'd always take offense when she'd say that. (Am okay now, you can test me by declaring those times as me having been procrastinating. :)

I will only read one or two fiction books at a time, but right now I am in th midst of reading probably 30 or so non-fiction books. Ahh the joys of being a college student.

#16 gradmedusa:
Dare I ask your unit load? :)

16 Credits at the moment. It is finals time, and I have a few fairly in depth research projects. I have about 15 books on North African Urbanism checked out at the moment (thank god for ILL), just wrapped up a paper on Wine in the Roman Empire and hopefully should finish my Modern Middle East paper tonight. Once finals are over I am off to a study tour in China for 3 grad credits, and a whole new reading list!