Are you a promiscuous reader?
Yes! Yes! Oh yes! Hence the many bookmarks scattered around our house.
This reading habit is something I’d self-diagnosed over the past few years, but this was the first time I had admitted it to anyone. I worry that perhaps it’s a symptom of some larger weakness of character or fatal atrophy of the intellect. On my bedside table, there’s a precarious column of half-read paperbacks that taunts me with the evidence of my own readerly promiscuity. The reason I don’t finish books is not that I don’t like reading enough; it’s that I like reading too much. I can’t say no. I’ll be reading a novel and thoroughly enjoying it. Then I’ll be in a bookshop and I’ll see something I’ve been anticipating, and I’ll buy it. I’ll start reading the new book on the bus home that evening, and that will be the end of the original affair. I’m certainly invested in the relationship with the book that I’m currently reading, but I can’t help myself from pursuing whatever new interest happens to turn my head. Perhaps that’s just a tortuous way of admitting to being a pathetic serial book-adulterer who’ll chase after anything in a dust jacket.
Promiscuous Reading by Mark O’Connell in the New Yorker blogs.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
September 4th, 2012 at 08:53
OMG yes! in between my real books, Kindle and iPad, I’m always in the middle of about 10 books. Literary ADD.
September 4th, 2012 at 10:42
Yey! And I thought it was just lethargy and ADD and melancholia all rolled up in one sorry excuse.
BTW, how do you balance reading and writing?
September 4th, 2012 at 11:41
it could be a symptom of ADHD.
i’m exactly as you describe yourself, i have several books at any given time waiting for me to finish reading them. i blame my ADHD for this.
September 4th, 2012 at 12:45
I got me a Nintendo DSLite last December. And it cured me of this vulnerability to cut price books. I was so distracted, so hooked, that I am now reduced to reading one book. In a month. BOOKSALES no longer arouse me. I am no longer looking forward to smelling the bound paper as it trickles an inch away from my nose. That dual screen steal represented my clean bill of mental health, or something. And it gets me sleepy in that same familiar way that a book does.
I am still reading, yes, but I’m doing it out of habit.
Muahness from Pasig Cirehhh!
September 4th, 2012 at 12:59
We miss the days when learning disabilities were unheard of and one was simply considered a slow student. Granted, many kids have real problems, but everything today is diagnosed as a disorder so nothing is anyone’s fault.
Reading many books at the same time is not a bad thing. It is not a disorder. It is a source of pleasure.
September 4th, 2012 at 17:43
I’ve always been a “promiscuous” reader. Wouldn’t have it any other way.
Currently reading Jerry Coyne’s “Why Evolution is True,” Michio Kaku’s “Physics of the Future,” and Christopher Moore’s “Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff.”
I’ll begin “Sacre Bleu,” (another Moore novel) tonight.
Few months ago, I read “The God Delusion,” “A Short History of Nearly Everything” (Bill Bryson), and reread Albert Camus’ The Plague.
The more I read, the more I realize the enormity of my ignorance.
Reading truly is a humbling experience.
September 4th, 2012 at 18:23
Book sluts unite!
The three-breasted woman in the Total Recall reboot reminded me it is time for my somewhat yearly re-read of The Hitchhiker’s Guide.
September 4th, 2012 at 20:48
I am currently on book-slut mode, flitting between my two Cut-Price finds (Lush Life by Richard Price, Bossypants by Tina Fey, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender) with some chick lit/contemporary romance in between. It has gotten to the point where I actually had to “break up” with the two other books that I’ve wanted to read (but couldn’t) by sending them back to my parents’ place.
I’ve also downloaded Is Everybody Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling on my laptop via the Kindle app, but it just won’t upload onto my iPod Touch for some reason. Looks like I’ll have to start getting used to reading from my PC if this keeps up.
September 4th, 2012 at 22:22
My DS Lite is happy canoodling with whatever paperback I have in my bag. And I still feel that primal hunter-gatherer thrill when I find a book I like for cheap at booksale or chapters and pages. I love mass market paperbacks because I can carry three or four at a time, as opposed to larger paperbacks or hardbound books.
One of the reasons I want immortality, even if I have to be a sparklepire to get it, is that I can have enough time to actually get to read everything I want.
September 5th, 2012 at 09:04
*THREE Cut-Price finds, Stella. THREE. Palibhasa sinuswerte noong nakuha yung Bossypants at 50% off. LOL
September 5th, 2012 at 19:00
This kind of promiscuity suits well with me. I’ve always had 7 different livre amours at any given moment. And probably always will.
September 6th, 2012 at 10:23
I’m not. To be able to fully appreciate a book I need to dedicate my entire attention to just one. I guess I’m boring in that aspect. I do, however, have a long reading list. Since I can only manage to read one book at a time, this list is ever-growing and there’s not enough time so I’ll probably never catch up.
September 9th, 2012 at 21:31
Chloe has been doing a lot of reading as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xaVL6qZKks
“… the Bhagavad Gita, Vanna Speaks and anything by JT Leroy.”