"I was wondering if you and/or the blog readers have an answer for this: when you finish reading a book you really like, how long do you wait until starting the next book? Immediately? The next day? If it's one of a series are you more likely to go on to the next in the series right away or read something else first?"
For my part, I always start another book immediately or that same day at least.
But never another book by the same author and usually a different kind of book. For instance the last few books I've read: BROKEN SHORE (crime) STRANGLEHOLD (crime), FATHER OF THE RAIN (lit), I'D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE (crime), CARETAKER OF LORNE FIELD (horror), THE HELP (mainstream). Forgive the "dreaded" classifications here but I am trying to point out there are different sorts of books-mostly but not entirely about crime.
And also for this handful of books I finished, there are double the number of books I started and discarded over this period.
Years ago, I plowed right through any series I stumbled on but no longer.
What is your progression and what is the timeline. Does anyone wait several days to absorb a book before starting another one? Is your next book at elbow length?
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I generally start another book the same day, on the odd occasion immediately after finishing one. I don't usually read two in a row by the same author though that happens once in a while also.
In series reading, I like to read from the first on, enjoying seeing how a writer develops over the years. That's what happened with Rbert b. Parker. The local library was very helpful in the extensive backlog of Spensers by that time, not to mention Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall.
Going through Parker must have been quite a task. I did it with Christie in my twenties but I read faster then.
Good answers. I tend to start the day with a short story or two, then return to whatever other book I'm reading. I also tend to start the next one right away, though sometimes I will wait until the next day.
Thanks for using this, Patti. I'll be curious what others do.
Jeff M.
Oh, and I also have changed from my 20's, when I'd quite often read a whole stack of books by the same author one after another - Christie, Simenon, Erle Stanley Gardner, even Anthony Powell's Dance to the Music of Time series (I read the 12 books one after the other).
Jeff M.
When I finish a book, I'm too curious about the next one in the pile and am into it within hours. I can remember reading a writer's whole output only once: Milan Kundera. (I'm also wondering about the intent of Jeff Myerson's question...)
Does having no set policy at all constitute a policy? I do get a lot of my books from the library, so what gets read next is frequently influenced by due dates. I finished Michael Connelly's latest last night, and would have started Elmore Leonard's latest, but the Yankees/Rangers game took over the evening. And today will mostly be devoted to college football and the baseball playoffs, so Leonard will have to wait.
I start reading another book as soon as I've finished a book. Right now, I'm reading Walter John Williams' trilogy, DREAD EMPIRE FALLS: three very fat books. I consider most trilogy or series "one book." I alternate between fiction and non-fiction.
Oh due dates figure in heavily. Good point. Atthough they actually preclude me reading some books--if it's long and the date is upon me, I ditch it. Just did that with Freedom. And also on of the Palestinian books Ron recommended. My library bugs the heck out of you once it's due if anyone else is waiting for it.
I can't speak to Jeff's intent, I think he's just interested in how other people read.
If it is something I really enjoyed (or because of the season, haunted by), it will be about two days before I start another. My mind will continue to turn it over in my head. Then, I look in my TBR pile and search for something unlike it so I don't unfairly begin comparing it to what I've just read (like so):
• crime novel --> sci-fi novel
• sci-fi novel --> thriller/adventure
• fiction --> non-fiction/history
Of course, if it didn't much like the book, I'm off to the races to find something good to read ;-). Thanks.
When I finish a book, I guiltily turn to all the magazines that have piled up. I get the New Yorker, the NYT book review and a couple of other literary magazines, and they seem to multiply like rabbits when I'm busy reading novels.
I like the waiting idea because I generally end up picking something I don't finish. And those mags. We get at least 15 because they are so cheap now. Have to admit I don't read the stories in tne NEW YORKER as devotedly as I used to but I am reading the Alice Munro one.
I'm always reading 2 or 3 books at a time so I don't generally have that problem. I would never wait very long for sure.
Well, always my book group book and another one. And sometimes a third that is non-fiction.
Alice Munro is always worth reading. I have Joyce Carol Oates' SOURLAND in the "on-deck circle" after the AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN.
Is there ever a moment when there is not a new JCO ready for the reading. We have a ton in my TBR pile.
I always have more than one book going at a time. One is usually a mystery, but the other will be non-fiction or, if fiction, of another genre. As I finish one book, I always start another. In fact, if I'm getting close to the end of one book and I think I'm going to be stuck somewhere (like the doctor's office) for a long time, I'll take the other book so I'm sure I'll have something to read the whole time I'm there. It's very rare for me not to be reading at least two books. I suppose that makes me sound rather compulsive, but then again, I am a compulsive reader, so if the book cover fits...
But no matter how many books I read, my TBR pile (mountain) continues to grow unabated. Sigh!
If the book is brilliant, I tend to finish it late night, and that suits me rather well because it gives me time to let it sink in before I pick up the next one the following day.
With more ordinary books I may pick the next one immediately, but I also prefer to wait a month or two before I read another one by the same writer.
I've never thought about this before...hmmm. When I finish a book I really like, I generally wait a bit before beginning another book because I like to think over what I've just read. I like to luxuriate in the prose, so to speak. (If the book was particularly well-written.) Most likely I'll begin another book in a couple of days. I dare not let the lapses get too far between because then I feel as I'm breaking the rhythm. Not a good thing for me.
If I'm reading a series I don't, necessarily, read them in order UNLESS there is a relationship involved among the characters. THEN I like to be in at the first hint. Although I admit, there ARE some series that MUST be read in order, it doesn't apply to all of them. I'm fairly easy about it.
When I first discovered Dick Francis, I immersed myself in all things Francis and read nothing but for a couple of weeks. Fun.
When not working, or stealing time from work to comment, I will read books and magazines and some newspapers, blogs and webzines and such as suits my fancy, rather irregularly...and if my eyes are too tired, as they often are after the twelth or fifteenth hour before a computer screen by the end of the day, I might catch up with my video/film viewing...and, too infrequently, music listening. So, when I finish a book, I'm as likely to pick up a magazine...I do read at least something off paper every day...
Radio and spoken word audio accompanies work, and begins and ends a lot of days.
Ron, it was just curiosity, as Patti surmised.
I know people have asked how you choose the next book, for instance, but was curious if a book being particularly enjoyable might make you want to take a little time to digest it (so to speak)or the opposite.
My problem is more likely to be that I finish something I like and want to read the sequel but don't have it on hand. This happened recently after reading Jamie Freveletti's first thriller (Running From the Devil) and this week after finishing The Hunger Games.
Jeff M.
Well, I'm against speed-reading, myself...that's a great way to miss subtext, poetry, grace...and it's how a Whole Lot of shallow work gets treated as profound, since it carries the trappings of sophistication.
Jeff and Patti, you know I'm almost always writing something about a book after I read it - for years it was reviews at amazon. That amounted to a kind of "digesting" I guess. Since I started blogging, I do that here.
I have no pattern as to when I start another book, but I do try to mix them up. So I almost never read two in a row from the same series, or by the same author. And when possible I try to switch between 1st and 3rd person, and move to a different time period.
I admire Joyce Carol Oates' productivity. Like Alexander McCall Smith, Oates seems to pump out a new book every few months. Oates' early novels are strong, her more recent novels...not so much. But Oates' short stories maintain a fairly high standard.
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