How many do you read at once?

lol (x100) When I first read the title of this topic, I had to laugh. At present, I am in the middle of *counts on fingers* I think... four? I'm not quite sure, but... no five! Six! That's right, definately six. I've started so many books I haven't finished, I can't quite guarantee that I've finished any at all! Well, perhaps that was an overexaggerated statement, but I get distracted easily, that's for sure.

My first post in a while...I'm visiting my Mom in NY just now...reading 3- Lovely Bones, The 25th Hour and Ash Wednesday, with several on deck!

Lorna

Welcome to A2K, Izzy!

As to the topic, let's see...Never more than two, and only one can be a novel. I tend to get so immersed in a story that it's hard to switch gears. Lately, truth be told, I rarely read more than one of anything at a time, though I do read magazines and papers, too...

(liitle k

heh, I somehow fished this post up in a search (I was searching on AIDs & Africa), but, so ... Simecka? Did you finish the book - which one was it? I read Simecka's political diary of the late eighties (End of Stagnation, it was called in the Dutch translation), a long while ago, found it really interesting. Did you know his son, Martin Simecka I believe, has written some really interesting journalistic/essayistic work, as well?

you'll enjoy it - she doesn't hide anything ... brutally honest about herself

I'm reading the center section in To The Finland Station about Marx and Engels (jeez what a book); have started a reread on Travels With Charley; am reading slowly and with great pleasure Garcia Marquez' memoir; dipping into Sebald's After Nature; but what seems to take most of my reading time is my way way way oversubscription to periodicals. Need new glasses, more time.

usually only one because i get totally hooked and can't stop! I read pretty fast so can move on to something different quite quickly.

Three at the moment.
Jeremy Cohen, "Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Society," University of California Press, 1999. On my major field reading list.
Robert Kaplan, "The Arabists: The Romance of an American Elite," Free Press, 1993. I swear it leaped out at me at Borders and said "Read me, read me!"
Neil Gaiman, "Neverwhere." I found the miniseries on VHS on Ebay and HAD to re-read the book.

Nimh: Now I have fished out your post through Google, searching articles from Martin Simecka!! Yes, he has written The Year of the Frog -an autobiographical novel that won a Pegasus Prize in 1993. He is the head of the PEN club Slovakia. And, Milan Simecka, his father, was my father's best friend. Martin often comes to my parents' house for a barbecue ;-)
Have you read Circular Defense?

I think I'm developing a Don't Ask Don't Tell policy with respect to the title question.

T, how is Wilson? He's been on my must-read list for about 30 years now (no lie), and that's a title I think should be on the top of the list. Your thoughts?

Well, I'd read it years ago and I still think that book should be at the top of anyone's reading list. Wilson writes well, having through things through clearly. He's not a knee-jerk, but an explorer. Highly recommended. Nice new edition, too...

When I read it in college -- and then again maybe ten years later -- I felt compelled to read from page 1 to the end. Now I'm finding "dipping" is also very interesting. So don't feel you have to read all million pages one after another! I think it would do just fine as a night table book -- for sampling and thinking...

Thanks. Now it's time to lay hands on a copy...

I have five partially read books on my nightstand,
but I can only read one of them at a time.

I don't know how you folks do it!