She writes, “I thought it would be a great way to keep Fall Into Reading participants connected throughout the course of the challenge.”

I was out of town last week and didn’t blog Question #9 and being the over-achiever that I pretend to be, I thought I’d just answer both today.

Here’s the question for last week:

Once you begin a book, do you feel compelled to finish it? Or have you been known to give up in the middle of a book, to walk away from a book that is just too annoying, boring, etc.?

It’s always my intention to finish a book once I’ve picked it up and for a long time I tried to struggle through to the end of a book whether I enjoyed it or not, but after awhile… there were simply too many books. My bookshelves were filling quickly than I could finish them (they still are) and I gradually came to realize that might never slow down.

Also? I read for myself, not for some lofty goal of being “well read” although that would be nice. And really who’s defining the words “well read”? I think if I’m enjoying the books I’m reading, then I’m well read. Torturing myself with books I don’t like just because someone else maybe thought I should read it? Not worth my time. So while I do try to attempt a book that’s recommended for being a classic or everyone loved it or whatever, if in the end I’m not feeling it, I’ll move onto something else.

My SIL gives every book 100 pages before bailing and I like that idea though I don’t think I’m disciplined enough to force myself to stick to one page number. Sometimes I put a book aside temporarily in favor of something else and hopefully pick it up again shortly after.

And here’s this week’s question:

Do you have multiple books going at once? Or do you prefer to stick to one book at a time?

Occasionally I’ll try to read multiple books at once, if say I’m reviewing one book but was in the middle of another, or if I just can’t seem to choose which book I want to read, sometimes I’ll read a couple pages of each for a few nights until one of the books comes to the forefront of the stack.

Also since getting the Kindle, there’s been that pull to read an e-book when I’m out and paper books when I’m home, but since I don’t get out much sometimes that might mean it could take me literally forever to finish something. I read Little Women sporadically for awhile after I first got it, but mostly read other things until we went on vacation last week when I was able to devote my time to it. Now I’m halfway through and determined to finish it so I’ve been ignoring the bookshelves in favor of my e-reading.

Basically, I have a pretty short attention span and not as much reading time as I’d like so as much as I wish I read multiple books at once, it usually doesn’t pan out for me long-term.

How about you? Can you multi-task your reading? Do you always finish the book you are reading?

mini-aside: How are your challenges going? Less than one month until the Fall season and the challenge are over and I’m pleased to report that I’ve now read all 7 of my initial picks and if I finish Little Women before winter arrives I’ll be able to add an additional 2 books to that list for a total of 9 books read this Fall and 31 books read so far this year. Not bad!