One two many

As I was reading my book on my way to work today, I realized something. I read only one book at a time. I might have multiple books on my stand, but I always choose one, and read it till the end, before I pick up another one. I know many people who read many books simultaneously, my own dad does that.

I was thinking of possible reasons, why I don’t do multiple books simultaneously.  Not that I don’t do multitasking, infact most of the times I am listening to music when I am reading books, so its strange I find it odd to read more than one  book at once.

I think it has to be with the attachment and passion towards the characters and the narrator. I usually develop this attachment which generates curiosity and the also ownership of the situations which unfold in the book. It becomes very difficult to come out of it, even when I am not reading. So may be its difficult to have the same level of involvement in multiple subjects.

Books are not like sitcoms which we watch an episode, followed by another episode from another sitcom and so on. We then wait for a week to get back to where we had left off. In fact, even sitcoms, I prefer to watch all episodes together over the DVD. The idea of continuity seems to attract me more than that of the novelty and variety.

If we term it as “thought space”, the dwellings of our mind which get transformed as we read a book, know the characters, their problems, their stories and their life. This thought space seems to handle only one set of people, and prefer to focus more on few, then less on many.

I was just wondering how much of this applies to our real life as well.

Some of us tend to have a large space, filled with many people, friends and family, people whom we just know, and end up not focusing on people who matter to us most. Some on the other hand have a very little people place, and end up focusing too much on them. I wouldn’t say one is better than the other.  Its just the way we are.

So what kind of reader are you?.