![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
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?
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
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%)
no subject
no subject
no subject
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.)
no subject
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.