We should start seeing other people
That’s what polyreading feels like to me. It’s like cheating. And mental illness – all of those voices in your head, all at once. All of them.
When I read Lucy’s recent post about having multiple books on the go, I was horrified. I’m not suggesting that there’s anything actually morally degenerate about polyreading, it just doesn’t fit with my reading experience at all. I usually get so immersed in a book that I forget I have a life and responsibilities. I struggle to remember to walk the dog, do the washing, feed the children, so the thought of juggling with extra books, well, that just sounds cuckoo to me.
It’s like friendship. I love meeting up with friends individually, but if I walk into a room full of people I know, it overwhelms me. Choosing who to talk to first, worrying about missing someone out, it’s all too stressful and I’d rather just go home. So, I just don’t understand why anyone would choose to do that with books. However, reading the comments on Lucy’s post, it appears that many people do. One woman/one book has given way to rampant fictional flirting.
I’m perfectly happy with mono-reading, but I’ll admit, my curiosity has been piqued by all this. So as an experiment, I’m committing to polyreading for a month to see how it works switching books about depending on my mood.
This is March’s polyreading book stack
This pile is one volume short, as I won’t know what my next bookgroup book is until next Friday. That’ll be the only one that absolutely has to be finished by the end of the month though. Despite my misgivings, when I look at those titles, I can already see one benefit of reading this way. Ploughing through ‘Moby Dick’ will take a busload of perseverence, so being able to punctuate the Melville gloom with little rays of P.G.Wodehouse sunshine does sound appealing. It’s decidedly unlikely, but who knows, I may yet be converted.
Lucy
Sarah
Bwahahahaa! Come over to our biblio-flirtatious dark side 😉 I’m STILL not quite done with War and Peace, and being able to read other things has stopped me from starting wars of my own. All I find I need to do, is not go more than two days or so away from a book. Yesterday I only read one, as there were only 50 pages to finish, and so letting them all tail off, I only have two on the go now. I like to get the numbers low before starting new things. And sometimes it’s more like just a short break. I read Cold Comfort Farm in two days, pressing pause on everything else, as it’s quick and easy, like a little holiday in Sussex during a Russian winter.
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Woohoo! Have fun. I am excited for you.
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I’m excited too, Monica. Excited, a little bit scared, and soon to be very confused! 🙂
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I am a terrible one for seeing other people. I blame it on college and typically taking more than one lit. class at a time. Good luck with your trial period.
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Thank you emilysbrainworks! Thinking about it, I have managed polyreading before, for college courses and study, and that worked fairly easily,as it already felt compartmentalised. Maybe I’m resisting because this is reading for pleasure, and it’s complicating what should feel easy!
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