Saturday Book Discussion: Are you a monogamous reader?
I am an unfaithful reader who shamelessly flirts with one book after another, spending a few tawdry hours with each, telling it I love it, knowing that I will soon be in the embrace of another before I've even finished the story with my current paramour. My insatiable appetite cannot be quenched by paper alone, and even what I can download has to come in a variety of forms to satisfy me.
With my huge and ever-growing TBR stack and the few hours a week I get to spend reading, my solution to reading more books seems to be: read multiple books at the same time in multiple formats.
I know this is not entirely logical, since I have the same number of hours divided up between multiple books so it's just going to take me that much longer to finish each one, but hear me out: I have a system!
First, I have my print books. Although nowadays, I mostly only buy ebooks, I still have a shelf full of paperbacks that I mean to read "one of these days," and I also acquire quite a few books on my TBR list from PaperBackSwap or BookMooch. I am an unapologetic ebook zealot, but I'll still take "free" any day.
Then of course there are my ebooks. I have a separate TBR queue on my reader.
So, at any given time, I am usually reading one print book and one ebook. The print book I keep at home for times when I have a few hours to settle into a chair and just read, while the ereader is what I carry around with me just in case I find myself stuck somewhere with nothing to do.
But I also listen to lots of audiobooks. When I am driving, working out, or shopping, I always have an audiobook going in my ipod.
That means I am usually reading at least three books simultaneously at any given time. (Yes, I count listening to an audiobook as "reading" it.)
Of course sometimes I find one of my print books a bit of a slog to get through, so maybe I'll crack another one and switch between them. Which means maybe four books going at once. For some reason, I don't do that with audiobooks or ebooks though. It's not actually harder to bookmark an ebook or audiobook and switch between multiple ones; in fact, it's easier. But I always finish my current ebook/audiobook before starting a new one.
So when I want to acquire a new book, how do I decide which format I want it in?
Most OOP books are not available as ebooks. Especially those older SF&F novels, which usually have not been either digitized or turned into audiobooks but are usually available right away on PBS or BookMooch. So them I usually read in dead tree format.
New releases nowadays almost always come out as ebooks at the same time they are print-published, so I buy the ebook.
But! Although I am trying to lighten my bookshelves and cure myself of my sentimental attachment to musty old paperbacks I am never, realistically, going to reread, I do make exceptions for series which I started in a particular format. For example, I bought the hardcover of Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings because it was real purty, and because it had interior illustrations. So I will probably continue to buy books in that series in hardcover because a series looks nice lined up on my bookshelf.
I also usually choose print over ebook for non-fiction books with illustrations, photos, graphs, tables, etc.
So which books do I usually choose to listen to in audio format?
Really long ones and really short ones. Sometimes I want an audiobook that will take a few weeks of driving time to finish. Other times I want one that I'll get through in a couple of days. I listen to a lot of my Austen and Dickens and Dostoevsky and Trollope via audiobook, even though I could them as free ebooks at Project Gutenberg, because I'll be honest, it can be daunting reading a 19th century doorstopper in text format, but having them rendered by a professional narrator with a perfect British accent makes them go by very pleasantly.
Also, if I start a series with an audiobook, I usually want to continue it in the same format, especially if I like the narrator.
I seriously organize my TBR queues according to format. And I prefer not to be reading the same type of book simultaneously in multiple formats. For example, if I am currently listening to a non-fiction audiobook, my print and ebook will be fiction. If the print book I am reading is a space opera, then I will choose a fantasy or something for my next ebook, and a Dickens on my ipod.
Obviously, I spend way too much time thinking about this. But it's all perfectly logical!
Poll manybooks
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