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I signed up for Remix. Everybody else better sign up too so I don't regret it. (I ended up qualifying in five fandoms, which kind of stunned me. And that doesn't even include drabbles, under which I could probably make it in a couple more, but I've been too lazy to collate my drabbles. I guess if you hang around fandom long enough you just accumulate fic one way or another. On the other hand those fandoms are kind of a wall of regrets: Harry Potter, SGA, MCU, Dresden Files, and Les Miserables.)

In other news, a couple days ago at work we were discussing a much-sought-after-book, and I said someone else could have it first, because I was literally reading thirty-seven books right now.

This got me thinking about how many books I am actually currently reading. By my goodreads "Currently reading" shelf, the number is thirty-two. That's a little bit misleading though. It doesn't include the waist-high pile of books by my bed which were pulled from my LT "in-progress" tag that I decided not to add to GR all at once because the number scared me. It also doesn't include my pending-very-soon library books. On the other hand, most of those are books I haven't touched in over a month (sometimes years) - the list of "books with progess made since mid-April" is somewhere between five and eleven, depending on what you count.

I have found in my tracking over the past 18 or so months that I tend to be actively reading a fairly steady number of books, one each in certain stable roles. Right in "books I have touched in the past month" I have:

1. Book to read on walks at lunch - this is a small book I can slip in my shoulder bag, happily read in 10-20 min intervals, and leave at work. It's usually a comic trade, a J novel, or an adult book with lots of pictures. I just finished my current one; the next will be either "The Strange Library" by Haruki Murakami or "Anna & Elsa: A Warm Welcome" which is the Disney tie-in where I am told Queen Elsa gets a girlfriend.

2. Book to read on breaks at work/on bad-weather days - this is usually a large shiny book with pretty pictures. Currently it's a picture book about the Precambrian that I saved from the discards cart. I am using both 1 and 2 to work through my library to-read list, mostly.

3. Audiobook for workout: to be listened to during weapons practice. This is only a half hour or so, three or four days a week, so it takes a long time to get through one. Currently "Chomp" by Carl Hiaasen, because someone was waiting for "Raising Steam", and "Chomp" sounded fun.

4. Hate-Read - for reading when I'm in a bad mood and don't want to contaminate an actual good book with my mood. Currently "The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya" (so horribly awful omg.)

5. Sleep-read - something pointless for when I just want something to stare at before sleeping and it doesn't matter if I absorb any information and I don't want to risk staying up later than intended. Currently "The Secret Life of Plants". I keep having a problem with these where they turn into books I want to actually pay attention to, which is part of how I ended up with a huge in-progress list, but luckily I don't see that happening with this one, which is just entertainingly bad. I used to mostly re-read well-worn favorite novels here but then I got in a pattern where I felt like I should be working on to-reads instead.

6. Actual Good Nonfiction Book - For when I get some real free time to read as slowly as I want and think about what I'm reading?? Someday I will read all of these. Currently "The New Wild". Most of the in-progress pile is this but I keep coming up with excuses to put library books first.

7. Token Fiction Book - Role currently being filled by the Silmarillion. Gets read in large chunks maybe once or twice a week as a treat.

8. Emergency Book To Carry At All Times In Case You Are Stuck Somewhere - Currently being filled by several Gutenberg e-books on my phone and a mini wildflower guide. Having Emergency Books on my phone has been great I have to say, the paperbacks used to get really beat up before I finished them, although someday in an emergency I will run my phone down reading and not be able to call 911.

9. Ebook to read on the desk at work - this has to be a PDF or online, since we don't have ebook readers on the work computers. Currently "Leather Spinsters and their Degrees of Asexuality" which I'm reading on googlebooks.

10. Workbooks - How-to/learning books which I'm going through very slowly and doing all the exercises properly. Currently this is a couple of Alfred's Adult Piano Course books. (I'm also playing with the Les Mis piano book but I haven't officially added it to the list because I'm bribing myself to get through the coursebooks first.)

That's ten. I don't really ever see it getting much below ten, either. It's usually more like eleven or twelve because I might have a couple going in the same category, left in different places around the house. (I'm probably going to start Ancillary Justice before I finish the Silm because I'm enjoying drawing the Silm out, for example.)

Anyway now I am curious. Counting by whatever rules you feel like counting by, how many books are you reading right now?

Poll #16687 How many books are you currently reading?

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 50

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How many books are you currently reading?

View Answers

1
2 (4.0%)

2
6 (12.0%)

3-5
23 (46.0%)

5-10
3 (6.0%)

10-20
4 (8.0%)

>20
1 (2.0%)

it's more complicated than that ok
11 (22.0%)

what are books?
0 (0.0%)

this is why you never get around to watching tv, mel
0 (0.0%)

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I'm reading one paper book and one epic length fanfic at the moment. I suspect if my computers were working there would also be an ebook from the not-fanfic folder and an audio adventure, though I tend to just sit down at home and listen a whole audio at once lately.

my non-fiction reading has been happening at article on the net length since college finished, and I've only just noticed that. That feels weird and needs fixing.

There's a lot of good long-form nonfiction on the net these days, though. I should probably be reading more of it.

Four, but one's a comicbook, and one's an audiobook.

And I guess I'm part way through a couple e-books, too. But mostly they're not very interesting.

I have a lot of trouble finding stuff that's the right balance of not so interesting it's dangerous, but interesting enough to finish.

I guess if you hang around fandom long enough you just accumulate fic one way or another. On the other hand those fandoms are kind of a wall of regrets

I know the feeling. (Harry Potter, SGA, due South, Eagle of the Ninth, Raven Cycle. If I bothered to go through my drabbles I could qualify in Wilby Wonderful, too, but I think there's a limit of five anyway.)

Currently reading: fiction ebook #1, fiction ebook #2, nonfiction ebook, nonfiction physical book, audiobook (fiction).

I think it's five offers, seven requests. I could probably scrounge up enough ficlets for X-Files and Sherlock Holmes if I really tried, but eh. (And I'd have to include Sherlock BBC in with the Sherlock Holmes stuff which would just feel dirty.)

But that's how it works, isn't it? You offer fandoms you qualify in, you request fandoms you might not qualify in but want to write anyway.

Yeah, that's why I went ahead and offered my HP and SGA fic and Dresden fic despite not being at all in the fandoms anymore. But my Sherlock Holmes stuff would be such a variety of different canons that I'd feel bad about listing it under one fandom, especially since I couldn't be sure the offerers realized just how MUCH that tag covers. (...and I'd have real trouble mustering up enthusiasm to even comment on a Sherlock BBC fic at this point, tbh. I know there's good stuff in that fandom but I can't.)

And for XF I'd have to throw in stuff that I currently think of as either objectively bad or extremely unfinished. ...idk, I guess we'll see if I get around to gathering drabbles together before Sunday.

I seem to be your opposite, at least with fiction -- I read in great gulps and find it very hard to put down an unfinished book; if my first reading is interrupted, I often end up abandoning the book altogether. Though I do have three or four reference books I'm dipping into at the moment, if that counts?

Oh, I do have that problem with fiction, but that's why I'm mostly reading nonfiction - fiction never stays on the currently-reading list very long.

That's also part of why I don't read as much of it anymore: none of the bits of my current life where I shoehorn in reading time are suitable for "must read all 300 pages in one go cannot stop sorry." So I have to time when I start a good novel very carefully to large blocks of free time. I can usually manage to get through the first 1/3 or so in small bits? But once it really gets rolling I have to keep going.

Ooh can I play with your axes next week??

Yes! Except I will be going camping memorial day weekend and taking most of them with me. But other than that.

The trouble with me is that I don't use books for a lot of these. My go to for 1 and 2 is tumblr, where I have a lot of pretty photos that I consider for writing inspiration. 9 is fanfic from AO3, where I read fluffy pairing fics if I'm stressed, plotty stuff if I need to think, and gen for when I need a break from legalese. 10 is short articles from links on writer's blogs.

My actual trufax book book is 7 and 8, and that's usually the same ebook on my phone.

I don't use the internet for 1 and 2 because when I'm on duty at work, I'm allowed to browse tumblr all i want but not to read physical books (DUMB RULE FoR A LIBRARY BUT WHATEVS) so by the time I'm on break I like having something that is not the internet to stare at. I try to avoid fanfic when I'm on desk duty though because I do need to be able to pull away from it at short notice if someone needs me, and good fanfic sucks up too much attention (I still give in sometimes though.)

Counting manga as books, I have two books I'm reading. I have a manga on my ipad that I'm reading at bedtime, and an ebook on my phone that I read when I'm on breaks at work on out somewhere and need something to read.

I don't really read much these days. :(

Manga totally counts though!

I am reading a lot more these days than I was a few years ago, but at the expense of watching basically no TV at all.

Oh man, I'm a serial book monogamist -- no matter what I'm reading, I always want to be focusing in on that and only that until it's finished (and I always have to finish it, even if it's terrible or boring; if I don't finish it, I feel like the book has beaten me!) I'll only do two at once if the circumstances are really unusual, like I'm on vacation and I couldn't bring one with me, or I really need to read one for a ficathon deadline or something. But usually I feel like it's so easy for me to forget stuff that happened earlier in a book I'm reading already, I don't want to cross the streams because then I would just get hopelessly confused.

I do that with fiction! ...which is why 90% of the books on my currently-reading are non-fiction, they tend to get put down and picked up repeatedly.

And a lot of the books in my hate-read categories are ones where I don't want to concede the book has beaten me.

My GoodReads says 5, but it's more than that. Currently re-reading some manga series from when I was just good enough at Englishing to read books.
Also, stalled on reading the new(ish) Tales of 1001 Nights translation because the repeating themes and frames around frames around frames mean I need to take breaks, and I'm a bit of a binge-reader.
Also also, fanfic.

Yeah adding fanfic on makes it all a lot more complicated to count. (I have 9 AO3 fics open in tabs, although ATM most of them are to-read rather than currently-reading, sometimes that balance shifts.)

Again, I'm not sure whether to include everything on the GR currently-reading shelf (I just moved, and some of those are still packed and will be for months, or belonged to housemates and now I'll need to find a new copy to finish; I should sort the list). But I usually am in the middle of a couple of library books, and emergency books stashed at work and various other places, and something long on the Kindle (Gay New York at the moment), plus a few random older paperbacks tucked into various bags and coat pockets for when I'm going somewhere and want something that won't be traumatic if it gets rained on.

I have Gay New York as in-progress ebook too!

and I'm glad I'm not the only one who understands about emergency books.

Actively reading: a paperbook (in French, pretty much always), an ebook on my ereader and an ebook on my phone.

Passively(?) reading: Lots.

Then there are comic books, but I tend to read them all at once.

yay, comics.

I'm curious, what are you defining as "passively" reading? Stuff you haven't picked up in a long time? Or stuff you accidentally read without trying?

Passively reading is books I consider myself to be reading but somehow never have the time to get to (or they're paperbooks that weight upwards of a pound and my wrists don't let me or whatever. Basically, I would be reading them if I could, but I'm not).

Currently only about four, but there have been times in my life the number has been a lot higher. However, the cause for me to have a lot of books I'm currently reading is very different from you (though I find your methods very interesting!) - I'm usually only ACTIVELY reading one book at a time, but I'll have a bunch that I'm stalled out partway through for a variety of reasons and totally intend to pick back up again ANY DAY NOW NO SERIOUSLY. Currently I'm stalled out on one book because I'm not in the mood for all the fantasyworld terminology it has going on, one because it's super stressful because a character I care about is making poor life choices, and one because I seem to have temporarily misplaced my interest in the person it's a biography of. I have mixed results on actually coming back to the books I'm paused partway into.

I have a LOT I have stalled out on actually, that's why there's that waist-high pile of stuff beside my bed, dating back years. <_< Part of the reason my currently-reading lists are so long right now is that I'm making a concerted effort to finally either get through or give up on most of those. And I totally get you about putting books down because your favorite characters are making poor life choices, that is so hard.

Edited 2015-05-19 15:56 (UTC)

Oh I know that feel. I used to have a stack of books like that by my bed; I eventually decided to move the ones that I'd been stalled out on for a REALLY long time back to my bookshelf to be considered "unread" since I would have to restart from the beginning anyways.

Good luck on your effort to make your way through the pile!

(oh also I just remembered a fifth book I'm stalled out partway through - a nonfiction book that's REALLY GOOD but really dense and requires me to be mentally functional and attentive to make it through even a few pages.)

These have been weighing on my mind even when they were on the regular shelves. We'll see how far I get! I've managed thirty or so in the past sixth months, so maybe if I manage to stay focused...

Oh yes, I have many of those. The ones you can't read because you can't read them when you're too tired to do anything other than sit and read, and when you're mentally copacetic, you have too much other stuff to use that precious time on. Most of the ones I have borrowed from my sister are like that.

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