I have a friend, culturally minded, who used to share my love of books. Now, for whatever reason, he lost interest in reading. When people gift him with a book, he gives it to me, with one request: “Keep it but tell me the gist of it so I can tell my friend I’ve read it.”
No one is inclined to read books anymore. Thanks to the Internet, we have been transformed into what they call “hyper readers.” Our attention span for reading has been reduced to how fast it takes to read a “meme.” On social media posts, long paragraphs of text are a turn-off. Our fingers are always swipe-ready, itching to click on to something that seems more interesting but short and easy to read.
My reading habits too have been transformed not only because of the prevalent technology but also for other reasons.
I am a child of traditional book reading. I used to go through one book continuously from beginning to end, not in one seating of course. I would take notes, highlight passages I like, and sometimes even pore through the bibliography at the end of the book. Then on to the next book.
It was a slow but deeper way to absorb a book. That’s why it would take me several months to finish heavy books such as Dostoevsky’s “Brothers Karamasov,” John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden” and Jose Rizal’s “Noli” and “Fili.”
When I landed a job after college, most of my tasks involved reading a lot of background materials for projects. Remember that was before computers and the Internet. Many nights I stayed awake till past midnight just reading. Someone convinced me to take up Evelyn Wood’s Speed Reading lessons. It helped me breeze through my reading requirements. But then when it came to books that really interested me, I would switch to my slow reading mode, but still one book at a time.
That was then. Nowadays I have acquired this habit of multiple book reading. I no longer stick to one book at a time. I jump from book to book without finishing one book first. Half an hour on one book, then another book in the next half hour. I normally have two to three books for reading at home and another set of three different books in the office, which I read only there. I also have e-books on my cellphone. As of this writing, I am into at least six books, in varying stages of completion. Other books are queued up to be taken up soon.
Have you seen a chess master playing against multiple opponents at the same time? Multiple book reading is something like that.
There are now movies where the hero has the ability to instantly transport himself to any place or time he can imagine. “Jumper” is the title of one movie I recall. So it’s like jumping from book to book without staying too long in one book. You can move from world to world: Quantum physics science now, renaissance time next. From person to person: Lawrence of Arabia now, then later Thomas More or scientist Richard Feynman or playwright John Osborne next. From place to place: aboard a train now with Paul Theroux, then shift to traveling the desert of the Sahara and jungles of Brazil with Michael Palin and back. You have in your hands the ability to change the scene on a whim, so you never get bored.
It is like a smorgasbord of food arrayed in front of you. In the same way that a variety and contrast of the food items on your plate keeps your taste buds awake and on the alert, and even results in new dish concoctions, multiple book reading helps “spice up things” as they say.
You need not start with the first dish, you can go into the middle dishes, or the ones at the end. You can take a little from every plate of food and then nibble on each dish alternately. Sometimes, I unconsciously mix some of the dishes and the inadvertent or improvised mixing of dishes on my plate can result in something surprisingly delicious.
One main reason why I abandoned the usual slow-burn reading mode is because of the many books on my shelves and plastic boxes. Too much choice, so little time. I have books I bought five years ago that I have yet to read. I am also into e-books, which you can download for free from the Internet. Not to mention free audio books, which are conveniently available on streaming platforms.
Someone once said, “A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.” Is it really a bad practice to juggle between too many books at a time? Maybe I like to have many half-finished love affairs.
My reading style and habits may have changed, but there’s one thing that has never changed—my love of book reading. So far, I’m enjoying it more because of multiple book reading. As I am relishing one book, I can’t wait to open the page of another.
I’ve been juggling multiple books for quite a while now that I’ve kind of gotten the hang of it! My acquired skills in speed-reading also help me scan contents fast without any loss in comprehension. The thing is I can stop at any point and switch to slow mode if something really catches my interest.
But if there are drawbacks, I still believe that jumping or switching from one book to another makes for richer reading, which expands the mind.
In fact, new research in schools finds that “mixing it up” produces dramatic and long-lasting learning benefits. It’s a type of learning process called “Interleaving,” which involves alternating between topics during one study session. Students mix multiple subjects or topics while they study in order to encourage connections between ideas or skills and thus improve their learning. This is in direct contrast to the traditional “Blocked practice,” which consists of studying one topic very thoroughly before moving to another topic.
If this is true, then my evolution as a reader of books has been in the right direction all along.
To those who have gone this far, thanks for resisting the itch to switch. But I understand.