Why I'm Reading Four Novels At the Same Time (plus one non-fiction book)
How many books can you read at the same time? One? Two? Three? At what point do you get confused? Was John is this book . . . or was it that book? Have you even tried it? I was afraid to read multiple novels at the same time, until I fell in love with it. In my past life, before I started writing, I would read multiple non-fiction books and a single fiction book at the same time. This would fluctuate between five and ten books, ten was pushing my limit for working memory, but five was easy. And, it was awesome. I made so many unusual and unique connections. If you're reading a book about how humans imitate each other in almost every way, including their desires (called mimetic desire from the philosopher Rene Girard), and a book about business strategy, and a memoir, your mind will connect them. The human mind is incredibly flexible and can connect any two ideas. This is called relational frame theory. Try it, how are a pig and a chair like each other? Give yourself a li