March Reading List

For several months now I've been reading 10-12 books simultaneously. I was inspired to do this by Will Self, who in answer to the question,

What are you reading currently,

Replied, 

Before I read digitally, I’d be reading perhaps 10 books simultaneously – but now I read as many as 50 at once...

This intrigued me. I don't read digitally apart from journal and newspaper articles so thought that 10 would be a good number to start with. So far it has worked out well.

Since embarking on this project I usually have ten on the go, never more than thirteen. I have a system (I love systems) where I aim to read three of the books every night. If there is time, and there usually is, I read three in the morning. That way each book will get picked up every other day or so.

When a reading session is finished one book is retained, the one I am most eager to go on with, and two will be returned to the back of the queue and two picked from the front for the next session. This method has increased my reading dramatically and I have completed more books in 2019 than I'd normally read in half a year.

The books are a mixture of fiction and non-fiction and there is normally a couple of very light reads among them. These light reads are not necessarily the most enjoyable but I usually persevere.

Currently, I'm reading twelve books, fiction by Charles Frazier, Esther Freud, Kate Atkinson, Patrick Ness, Toni Morrison, Anna Burns, Sebastian Faulks and Matthew Thomas and non-fiction by Stephen McGann, Suki Kim, Edward Stourton and Catherine Simpson. Stourton is the light read. I may not finish it.


Half of the books are from the local library, one is a new book (Milkman) and the other five are second-hand. I got Jazz in Amsterdam.  Varina and Human Traces I'm reading after Bert. He loved both. Almost finished Hideous Kinky and have just begun Simpson and McGann. 

  I should return to this theme in a few weeks time so that we can all see how I'm getting on. One more thing, I should add a previously read book to the mix. There are novels on my shelves I've had since I was sixteen years old. I'm sure some of them could bear another read. After all, there must be some reason I've held on to them for half a century.