Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Reading style

Just curious about this -

I tend to read one book at a time.

DS8 reads several - he'll have a few by the bed books, a car book, a school desk book and a living room book. And I'm just talking about fiction.

He finishes several each week so I guess he doesn't have an issue keeping it all straight.

I'm just curious if other people do this.

Oh totally me....car book for waiting for kids, bed book, might have a kindle app book, audio book, paperback toss in a bag book, sometimes children's book.

But right now I am one at a time book reading.

I am also a monogamous reader.

I've juggled multiple reads at times, but it's not my preferred mode. I will break up a particularly arduous project (like my current one: Plutarch) with some brain candy as needed, though. So I guess I'm a monogamous reader who dabbles in polyamory.

DD10 has scattered several reads together, many times starting but never finishing large novels or whole series, which I attribute to her naturally developing sticktuitiveness, which is age-appropriate but well behind her reading level.

Totally polygamous here although I usually don't have more than 4 at a time. When I was very young, I couldn't wait to find out the ending on certain types of fiction books so tend to inhale those in one sitting. Now that I am more disciplined, I find myself able to juggle multiple books at one time.

DD is the book-- er, I mean, she's the one that juggles multiple books at once.

DH and I both tend to read them one at a time, but DD16 hasn't done that since she was about five, when she gobbled up beginning chapter books like potato chips (one after another as long as we'd let her, basically). She will do it now, but only if it's inconvenient to carry more than one, say on a car trip or vacation.

She seems to read as many as half a dozen or so at once, and perhaps more if she's reading below level.

Currently, for example, she's got Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake going alongside Invisible Man and a fond re-read of Watership Down for late-night. On top of her college reading load, I mean-- none of that is assigned.

3 out of 4 of us read many books at once. DH is our holdout, reading one book at a time.

I used to read many books at the same time in elementary school and to a lesser extent in high school, but now I am a serial bigamist reader - I can be reading one nonfiction and one fiction book, but usually not more than that. ( ::Considers drawing parallels with bisexuals who have one male and one female partner at a time, then decides to leave it alone:: ).

DS9 is the same as your son. Sometimes he'll read something straight through but more often, he has five-to-ten in various places. Not neatly placed, either!

He is a frighteningly fast reader - but whenever I am sitting with him and take the book to ask a question about the page he just read, he knows what it said. Not sure if he just gets to a boring spot and stops for a break or what happens.

I rarely read these days (I listen to audiobooks instead) because I have a bad habit of getting to a slow part then skipping ahead until it gets interesting... but then feeling like I need to go back and read those sections I skipped. When I did read actual books, my habits were similar to DS', but neater.

Thanks for this. DD8's unsticktuitiveness has been slightly bugging me - not just large novels but all sorts of projects - but this is a much better way of looking at it.

I've been trying to remind myself too that DD doesn't have to like every book I put in her path. She does give them all a go, at least - and yes, half a dozen at a time. Sometimes it's a surprise which ones she'll finish (not the easy Horrible History types, more the Phantom Tollbooth types). Meanwhile, I read one at a time, and I'm determined to finish each one, unless I really really hate it in which case I skim read to the end to see what happens.