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Proof that I am disturbed
12 October 2011 11:17 pmI have five -- count 'em, five -- books that I am reading AT THE SAME TIME. Granted, they're five very different books (Victorian bad-boy fiction, librarians are awesome, medieval roman a clef, women's colonial history, and World War II brit-love), that still seems excessive. Some have been lingering a long time, I admit. The WWII book has been in progress since, oh, May of last year, but hey, it's still on my nightstand within the top 5" of the pile, so it counts, right?
This is the only way I can read multiple books. If I were to try to read two or three fantasy novels at the same time, or two or three histories, my brain would go all bobcat-pretzel on me. But as long as I can file each one in a separate location, I seem to be able to deal with it. I'm not sure this is necessarily a good thing. Many recent articles debunk the Myth of Multitasking (apparently we can't do it, we just THINK we can), so perhaps I'm really only half-reading -- or in this case, 20-percent-reading -- each of them. But I disagree. When I'm reading one, I'm totally involved in it. I don't read a page of this one, a page of that one, a page of the other one. That would be multitasking (and actually a pretty accurate description of what I do at work, where I'm constantly discovering a window buried underneath several others, and saying "Oh look, I totally forgot I was in the middle of that email/document/analysis/presentation/YouTube video..."). Reading a chapter or two of a different book each night is more like having something different for dinner, eating what you're hungry for instead of having turkey every night for a week.
So yeah, I'm OK with the multiple book maintenance thing. Anyone else do this? Or is it just me?
This is the only way I can read multiple books. If I were to try to read two or three fantasy novels at the same time, or two or three histories, my brain would go all bobcat-pretzel on me. But as long as I can file each one in a separate location, I seem to be able to deal with it. I'm not sure this is necessarily a good thing. Many recent articles debunk the Myth of Multitasking (apparently we can't do it, we just THINK we can), so perhaps I'm really only half-reading -- or in this case, 20-percent-reading -- each of them. But I disagree. When I'm reading one, I'm totally involved in it. I don't read a page of this one, a page of that one, a page of the other one. That would be multitasking (and actually a pretty accurate description of what I do at work, where I'm constantly discovering a window buried underneath several others, and saying "Oh look, I totally forgot I was in the middle of that email/document/analysis/presentation/YouTube video..."). Reading a chapter or two of a different book each night is more like having something different for dinner, eating what you're hungry for instead of having turkey every night for a week.
So yeah, I'm OK with the multiple book maintenance thing. Anyone else do this? Or is it just me?
