Key takeaway: Reading multiple books at the same time is beneficial.

November 19, 2022 9:31 AM

The best reading skill no one ever taught you. Care of Elizabeth Filips, who clearly knows a thing or two about how to live a chaotically organized life.
posted by philip-random (49 comments total)

It used to be the big family joke that I had a book going in every room in the house. I feel very vindicated.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:54 AM on November 19, 2022 [15 favorites]

I read 3 sometimes 4 books at a time
And I am a syntpoical reader
Does a syntpoical reader 'fit' her reading system?
Syntopical reading:
It is the most complex and systematic type of reading of all. It makes very heavy demands on the reader, even if the materials he is reading are themselves relatively easy and unsophisticated. Another name for this level might be comparative reading. When reading syntopically, the reader reads many books, not just one, and places them in relation to one another and to a subject about which they all revolve. But mere comparison of texts is not enough. … With the help of the books read, the syntopical reader is able to construct an analysis of the subject that may not be in any of the books. It is obvious, therefore, that syntopical reading is the most active and effortful kind of reading.
posted by robbyrobs at 10:00 AM on November 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

ok after a lifetime of 2 or 3 books at a time, I feel extremely vindicated too!
posted by supermedusa at 10:07 AM on November 19, 2022 [4 favorites]

I started reading multiple books at at time several years ago when I was trying to read more nonfiction. I was always a fiction reader, and found that the only way I could read nonfiction was to dip in and out of them. Now I do exactly what she says: I read books in different categories. One fiction, one self-help/psych, one book on science, one on history, etc. Up to about fifteen books at once. It's not optimal, perhaps. But it's how I read more books in a year, and not just fiction.

I had never heard of syntopical reading til now, and I guess that would be something I could do, but my interests are too far ranging. And at 55, with a huge library that mostly consists of my "to-read" list, and is constantly curated and changing, I am too motivated to Read All the Books to stay focused on one thing.
posted by RedEmma at 10:08 AM on November 19, 2022 [6 favorites]

My current rate of reading, to add, is about 80 books a year. And these days I'm managing that about half of those are nonfiction.
posted by RedEmma at 10:09 AM on November 19, 2022

I don't want to wait 12 minutes to find out why it's ok that there is ... erm ... a pile of active books on the couch. What's the tl;dw?
posted by aniola at 10:15 AM on November 19, 2022 [7 favorites]

Syntopical reading. Got it! I don't read linearly and now I see that this was already answered above.
posted by aniola at 10:16 AM on November 19, 2022

How about intending to read multiple books at one time? I swear I'm gonna finish Kahnemann. Soon! I promise!
posted by Michael Roberts at 10:42 AM on November 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

The Virtue of Owning Books You Haven’t Read
“When considering whether to buy yet another book, you might well ask yourself when you’ll get around to reading it. But perhaps there are other, even more important considerations, such as the intellectual value of the book in its still-unread state.”
How many books do you own?
What did you just view?

The Virtue of Owning Books You Haven’t Read: Why Umberto Eco Kept an “Antilibrary”
posted by robbyrobs at 10:56 AM on November 19, 2022 [7 favorites]

I’ve been doing this for years. I learned it from my mom, who considered having several books going at once the sign of a true bookworm.
posted by elphaba at 10:57 AM on November 19, 2022

No. Nope. Never. Would drive me insane.
posted by kyrademon at 11:04 AM on November 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

I feel seen.
And that's without setting down one of the books I'm reading to watch a video.
I mean, come on.
posted by chavenet at 11:14 AM on November 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

I've always done this. When I was a kid, I was so excited when I got home from the library with a big stack of books that I couldn't wait to read just one of them. I would start on a second one before I had finished the first. After a while, it just became a habit that I still have today.
posted by Quonab at 11:17 AM on November 19, 2022

I think I have three going right now not counting things that are being delivered in bite-sized emails a la Dracula Daily (which is a hoot and we should do a read-along next year). I feel seen.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 11:20 AM on November 19, 2022

Dumb advice you should never give or take:

- Only read one book at a time.
- Finish every book you start.

Never do the following alone:
- dine out
- go to a bar
- see a movie
- travel

If I'd followed any of that advice, my life would have been shit, not to mention boring.
posted by dobbs at 11:32 AM on November 19, 2022 [28 favorites]

A good comment from the comments section, which is originally from French author Daniel Pennac's book on reading, Better Than Life:

The Reader Bill of Rights

1. The right to not read.
2. The right to skip pages.
3. The right to not finish.
4. The right to reread.
5. The right to read anything.
6. The right to escapism.
7. The right to read anywhere.
8. The right to browse.
9. The right to read out loud.
10. The right to not defend your taste.
posted by AlSweigart at 11:54 AM on November 19, 2022 [19 favorites]

As she says in the first video, reading more than one book at once is basically what we do all our school lives.
posted by maggiemaggie at 11:58 AM on November 19, 2022

The Reader Bill of Rights

Maybe if my rights 5, 6 and 7 had been respected in my childhood, I would have grown up to be a happier, better adjusted adult. Or maybe not. It's too late now, anyway.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:01 PM on November 19, 2022

The Virtue of Owning Books You Haven’t Read

I store these at my public library.
posted by aniola at 12:02 PM on November 19, 2022 [15 favorites]

this topic came up for me the other day. Somebody asked me what I was reading. I took a look around and quickly concluded there was no easy answer.

At my bedside, there are four books, all of which I'm to some degree committed to, including Lord Of The Rings which I'm currently reading for at least the fifth time and this time I'm determined to take as long as possible to complete the epic task. The other three aren't really that linear so make for good random access:

- William Burroughs' My Education which is a collection of dreams and riffs thereof (one of his last works)
- Meeting The Shadow (a collection of essays on the dark side of human nature)
- Compendium (basically a huge collection of wigged out Julian Cope record reviews)

And then there's the two in the main room:

- The Spy and The Traitor (a Ben MacIntyre non-fiction cold war tale)
- Stranger Than We Can Imagine (John Higgs making sense of the 20th Century)

Plus I've always got to have something I can read in the bath (ie: don't mind ruining). My current choice there is an old already battered Graham Green Penguin paperback (The Confidential Agent).

And then there's my current fave (ie: the one that, if this was a horse race, would be starting to make its break down the backstretch, leaving the rest of the field in its dust), CAN All Gates Open, the story of the group Can, which is really two books in one as it has a huge sort of appendix entitled Can Kiosk (a collection of various interviews and journal entries c/o Irmin Schimdt, the original band's last surviving member). I point this out because I'm reading both simultaneously -- the story and the kiosk -- as they do seem to complement each other.

Also, notable for its absence. I usually have a good mystery or sci-fi on the go, but for whatever reason, I currently find myself between things. It's hard (for me) to find a really good mystery or sci-fi.

All of which might explain why I enjoyed Elizabeth Filip's video. It spoke to me. Even as I kind of disagree on a key point. She seems to feel there's a definable method to it all. I'm not conscious of one myself, just chasing my curiosity (aka freedom) through the stuff of the so-called information age. The universe just keeps expanding.
posted by philip-random at 12:04 PM on November 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Making videos about reading is like dancing about architecture.
posted by phooky at 12:07 PM on November 19, 2022 [4 favorites]

Dancing about architecture sounds interesting!
posted by aniola at 12:33 PM on November 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

Can confirm. Looks like dancing about architecture would be a lot of fun.
posted by aniola at 12:36 PM on November 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

I didn't know there were people who don't do this.
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:49 PM on November 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

I didn't know there were people who don't do this.

I usually don't read more than one book at a time, if I can help it - which is easier now that I'm no longer in academia.

I'm no less a true reader or bookworm than people who do read multiple books at a time, contrary to some people's opinions I've encountered. It's just a different preference, or possibly just a different set of needs.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 12:53 PM on November 19, 2022 [4 favorites]

Sometimes I'll read a fiction and nonfiction at the same time, but more often I just read one at a time.
posted by Foosnark at 1:23 PM on November 19, 2022

I haven't watched the video, but will remain confident in my opinion that having two physical books open in the same place at the same time and reading them both simultaneously is the way to go. Page 1,2, second book 1, 2. First book pages 3, 4, second book pages 3, 4
posted by Jacen at 1:40 PM on November 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

Jacen, what happens if one book has more pages than the other? Do you just have to find a third book and start it at page 374?
posted by Lanark at 2:04 PM on November 19, 2022

I often have two books actually on the go (discounting the dozens of books that if I am honest I have abandoned partway through but haven't removed from my ereader "because I might want to finish them"). The first is whatever I'm actively reading and the second is an old familiar, well worn favourite to take me out of the shitshow of modern life and let me sleep/relax. I can basically tell how stressed I am by the read ratio of those two.
posted by Mitheral at 2:06 PM on November 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

Just to be clear, I don't particularly care what you do. You do you!

I used to read serially, one book at a time. Now I read in parallel, many books "at a time." I can tell a book is really good when I read it all the way through without switching (i.e. Cormac McCarthy's The Passenger)

p.s. audiobooks are books
p.p.s ebooks are also books
p.p.p.s. comic books are books (it's right there in the name!)
p.p.p.p.s. read what you want to read, it's nobody's business
posted by chavenet at 2:09 PM on November 19, 2022 [7 favorites]

There must be 40 books I got 100 pages into and didn’t finish this year alone.

In the case of fiction they were mainly fantasies where the plot took a turn I didn’t like, primarily when the main character was kidnapped, especially when the main character was a woman. I understand that kidnapping women and girls is absolutely ubiquitous now and in the past; I would be surprised if there is any person alive who is not the descendant of a kidnapped woman. I wouldn’t be surprised if fear of kidnapping has somehow even become innate like fear of heights. But I’ve had it up to here, where here is a spot ten feet over my head, with kidnapping as a trope in fantasy novels.

With non-fiction it’s mainly because the book has give me exciting ideas I need to attempt to think through on my own before I continue to read. More often than not that takes me far afield, and I have to struggle to get back into the frame of mind which will allow me to finish the book. Which means that I actually have not finished many of my very favorite books!
posted by jamjam at 2:23 PM on November 19, 2022 [5 favorites]

I thought that everyone read nonfiction books this way. Unless you're monomaniacal in your interests, you're always going to have a few different reference books going at once.

I do find it more difficult to read fiction or other narratives this way and still keep track of what is going on in each distinct story. Then again, most of the stories I'm reading simultaneously are fanfics I'm subscribed to on AO3, so I suppose reading different stories that have the same characteristics and settings is doing it on extra hard mode.
posted by Jacqueline at 2:23 PM on November 19, 2022

I store these at my public library.

Another nice thing about the library, I find, is that having to return or renew is a good prompt for asking the question "do I actually want to keep reading this?" I find that often, if I'm still reading it after 3 weeks, the answer is no. My pace is usually 1 book per week, so if it is taking me much longer than that either the book is really dense and challenging (which can be good) or it is just boring and I should have moved on.
posted by selenized at 2:50 PM on November 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

I am reading The Lord of the Rings for the I don't know how many times. I am old now and I have mobility issues. But I am right there with Frodo and Sam, face turned towards Mount Doom. Gods, what an effort this life has been! But I haven't been alone, with my books.
posted by SPrintF at 2:58 PM on November 19, 2022 [10 favorites]

My reading/audiobook listening is very situational:
there's always an audiobook or two on my phone that I listening to while driving or doing household chores;
there's sometimes a book on my iPad's kindle app because that book isn't available as an audiobook or unsuitable for listening, and that's usually for bedtime reading;
there're perhaps two or three Chinese books on my iPad's Weread app that I glance at while my daughter does her Chinese homework at night -- it's amazing how long she takes writing out sentences in Chinese and without the distraction I would have given up tutoring her long ago;
there's always a classic novel on my phone's kindle app for piecemeal reading in doctor's waiting room or checkout lines. Each novel can last a year or two and I just finished "Age of Innocence" that way. With classic novels, the pace is usually slow and the language rich, so reading in small chunks at uncertain intervals works out great. I first started this practice with "Barchester Towers" and that was a great pick also.
(After writing this all out, I just realized that for me physical books are only for trains and planes now.)
posted by of strange foe at 3:03 PM on November 19, 2022

> "I didn't know there were people who don't do this."

Without, of course, judging anyone else's reading preferences -- everyone should do what they like! -- I pretty much never read more than one book at a time. There are a number of possible reasons for this, including:

1) I read, so far as I can tell, very fast, and finish most books quite quickly, so I don't really run out of steam on them.

2) I read, so far as I can tell, a lot of books as such things go, so I guess I don't really have worries about never getting to a particular interesting book in my pile. This may be irrelevant, though; I imagine there are lots of simultaneous bookreaders who read lots of books in a short time, too.

3) Perhaps most importantly, I have the kind of mind that like to focus on One Thing At A Time. I do not like starting something new if there is something else I want to finish, be it books or anything else. My ideal workday is: Work on a single problem. Lunch. Work on a single problem. Leave. The idea of leaving a book unfinished to start a new one when I still want to find out what happens in the first one makes my brain hurt in a way that's difficult to describe.
posted by kyrademon at 3:50 PM on November 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

I'm a multiple-book person and have been for as long as I can remember. Sometimes the books are all kind of the same (like three detective novels or whatever) and sometimes they are wildly different. I don't usually have a lot of trouble keeping track of the different narratives as long as I don't leave a book half-read for too many weeks.

But these are all casual reading, where none of it really takes a lot of attention and it's no big deal to miss something. I was more focused in my reading in graduate school (though still with lots of things going at the same time).

I definitely don't think this is a better way to read (vs reading one thing at a time, say), it just seems to be my comfort zone and at this point feels familiar.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:11 PM on November 19, 2022

I’m Team One Book at a Time. My son is Team Multiple Books. We don’t understand each other but we both read a lot of books. You do you.
posted by caution live frogs at 6:33 PM on November 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

I do this for pragmatic reasons. If I'm working it makes sense to read an ebook. If I'm on my lunch break it makes sense to read a physical book. If I'm at home it makes sense to have a different physical book so I don't have to carry one to my jobsite and back every day.
posted by one for the books at 7:57 PM on November 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

My father helped me, young, I've always been a reader and always had books opened faced down here and/or there about the house. My father got to where he closed them any time he saw one -- "What? The? Fuck?"

I didn't say "What? The? Fuck?" of course, I doubt I even had that onboard yet; I used whatever it is that maybe a seven or eight year old kid would use, talking to his father.* Anyways, my father insisted that I need not leave the book face down, or with a marker, or anything else. He told me that I knew exactly where I was and need only pick the book up, flip the pages a time or two and ZAM !!! here I am, right where I left off.
*Best I know I never heard my father use any course language, and I mean never. He wouldn't say "Shit!" if he had a mouthful, as the saying goes. One measure of a person; listen to what they say when they get their hand caught in a car door, or smack their thumb with a hammer. By eleven years old I had a sailors tongue, my brothers, friends, cousins especially. At thirteen I was on construction sites, and no going back after that, it's my native tongue.

Whenever I finally got done being angry about it, and tried what he said, it turns out he was/is absolutely correct. It's like a super-power I didn't know I had, like maybe if Superman didn't know he was faster than a speeding locomotive or whatever.

(My father, also when I was really young, said what I believe are some of the most important words anyone has ever said to me: "Read. Read, Stephen. The whole world is right there. Read." 45 or 50 years on, toward the end of his life, I thanked him for those words, told him how important that was, told him that I followed those words down the years. Amazingly, he didn't remember saying that to me. My world shook. "What? What do you mean? Of course you said that to me." Blank look. Totally skyed on him.**)
**What if he'd said "Jump out of trees." or "Go play in traffic." I'd have been screwed...

~~~~~

This Elizabeth Filips is a trip. I trust her, which I need in a teacher. Plus I like her, which I don't need in a teacher but it surely helps. I like that she's all festive***, I like that she's pretty much loony tunes yet has this great life going on; I trust her even more.
***Festive is a word that could have been coined for Filips, seems to me. It's a word I love, a word given to me by this totally festive friend of mine, 35 years gone by; I think of her and I think of her merry eyes, and her laugh, and the word "Festive." A nice gift from a very rockin' friend.

I am going to have to use lessons from her vids in order to be able to spend enough time with them to where I can internalize it all.

~~~~~

Last. Audible. Dan Carlin. Joe Rogan. Lex Fridman. I have spent much less time with reading since becoming an online person. And I have accepted that, it is a different type of richness but richness nonetheless. I *love* Barbara Kingsolver, I own most of her books on Audible -- talk about richness, I can lay right on my very own couch, in my very own condo, iced coffee, iced sport drink, and get read to by Kingsolver. I *love* it; I get to hear her exact intonation, I get to hear how much a pause she places with a comma, or a semicolon.

How I'd love to hear Samuel Clemons read to me, Huckleberry Finn obviously but also also also what he wrote at the end of his life, his beloved wife dead, his beloved daughter dead, broke once again after some bad investment, he was willing to write what he saw, the dark, not just the happy Mark Twain, not just the public Mark Twain but instead the hurting, pissed off Samuel Clemons. If you haven't read "Letters From The Earth" you're not well-read. How I'd love to hear Clemons read that, and also "The Mysterious Stranger" and "Was It Heaven, Was It Hell" and "Captain Stormfields Visit To Heaven". If you haven't read Clemons you don't really know Twain. I'd sure love if he was on Audible.
posted by dancestoblue at 8:20 PM on November 19, 2022

Go ahead and link to videos, but I ain't gonna watch them. They move too slowly. Now, books stop time and move at the speed of light, both.
posted by kozad at 8:33 PM on November 19, 2022 [4 favorites]

I typically have 2-3 books going at any given time, but in different formats. I'm working my way through Agatha Christie's books as audiobooks while I paint, and I don't move on to another audiobook until I've finished the current one (in part because I worry about losing my place). I generally am in the middle of an ebook and a print book at any given time too. But I tend to finish my book in each format before starting another in the same format.
posted by joannemerriam at 7:54 AM on November 20, 2022

My norm is to be reading one fiction and one nonfiction book at once; currently that's Alastair Reynolds's Eversion and Daniel Yergin's The Quest, respectively. My record for most books read simultaneously--and completed--is seven. My forever goal is to read 24 books a year but haven't achieved that since I got a smartphone. I'm doing better this year.

I have read LOTR three times, the last about a decade ago. Inspired by watching The Rings of Power I have just finally read the LOTR appendices for the first time. So now I know a little about Numenor, Aragorn's life before LOTR, and that Bilbo's adventure came as a result of [SPOILER] a chance meeting in Bree of Gandalf and Thorin after The War of the Dwarves and Orcs. After I finish Eversion I'm going to finally read The Silmarillion and if I'm motivated after that I may read the new Fall of Numenor book.
posted by neuron at 10:18 AM on November 20, 2022

I don't know how it is that I came to be so completely oblivious to the rules that govern most people's lives, but I'm constantly amazed to discover new aspects of my ignorance. Why would you think you had to read by any rules at all? I mean who would even know or care what you're reading?
posted by HotToddy at 12:26 PM on November 20, 2022

I think of reading multiple books as a nested structure. Something very long and not requiring a lot attention of continuity will be the outer shell. For me, this is currently the 1989 volume of Jimmy Maher's Digital Antiquarian ebooks.

Inside that, or maybe concurrent with it, is a non-fiction book that is usually new to me that I dive into for a few chapters at a time, then come back out of to think on for a while. Currently this is The Dawn of Everything - A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow.

Inside this is a (usually) new to me bit of fiction that I either read straight through or take brief breaks from. Currently, this is Vladimir Nabakov's Lolita.

And finally, inside this layer is something very light (most recently Crocodile On The Sandbank, the first Amelia Peabody mystery) or something I'm re-reading, typically taking me a few days or a week, and usually read straight-through.

At the moment, though, I'm actually reading some of Jimmy Maher's stuff on the origins of Microsoft Windows that hasn't made it into ebook yet.
posted by lhauser at 12:30 PM on November 20, 2022

I'm in the process of going through my late father's stuff. He was an avid book collector (we have a couple of thousand books to find homes for) and there's so much I'm going to look into. The ones I've picked up and brought home today include...

A History of England's Fairs and Markets
The Victorian City, vols 1 and 2
Modern Welsh Poetry
Power Stations of London
A Manual of Book Binding
Printed Ephemera
Climbing the 4000' Alpine Peaks
Collected Poems of Osbert Sitwell
Buddhist Villages of the Himalayas

There's going to be a lot of parallel reading and dipping-into going on round here in the near future!
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 1:24 PM on November 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

> A History of England's Fairs and Markets
The Victorian City, vols 1 and 2
Modern Welsh Poetry
Power Stations of London
A Manual of Book Binding
Printed Ephemera
Climbing the 4000' Alpine Peaks
Collected Poems of Osbert Sitwell
Buddhist Villages of the Himalayas

Your father was Arthur Bryant and I claim my five pounds.
posted by The corpse in the library at 5:23 PM on November 20, 2022

Reading multiple books is a necessity if you have a cat! Doesn't matter what the books are, as long as they are spaced more than cat-length apart.
posted by Dotty at 11:04 AM on November 21, 2022 [1 favorite]

Absolutely not, and I'm tired of videos that say "this works for me, so you should do it too." (I have no idea if this video does that; I turned it off after 30 seconds because I didn't like the implication that reading one book at a time is "doing it wrong.")

I can only assume that multiple books works better for people with (a) lots of free time to read and (b) good memories. I read about 20-30 books a year, but I never have long periods of time to read - I catch 10 pages before bed or during breakfast. The older I get, the more difficulty I have holding on to details (I think this is also a byproduct of going longer between reading sessions) - I will often have to go back a few pages to remind myself what is going on.

The only exception is that I will sometimes listen to an audiobook in the car and read a paper book at home, but even then, I sometimes have difficulty keeping the two stories straight in my head. I have tried to alleviate that by picking an audiobook of a vastly different genre than whatever paper book I am reading at the moment (e.g. NK Jemisin at home, Carl Hiaasen in the car).

Anyway, read in whatever way makes you happy.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 1:18 PM on November 21, 2022