I'm always reading about 5 books in parallel, depending of my mood, the context and my focus.
Usually:
- biography or fiction book that I listen to while driving
- hard science book when I know I can focus for a few hours. (I.e. Quantum mechanics or advanced algorithms)
- 1-2 business or technical book that I read on kindle (Either from PC, ipad or my iphone)
- various blog or pdfs open on my pc / iphone
The business / technical books are the ones that I read the fastest because I can skip useless chapters and they're always one-click away when I have a few minutes to wait.
The hard science are the ones that take the most time.. sometimes it can take me weeks to read a few pages, and I often need to do side research to understand what I'm reading.
I think the fact that I have different choices help me read more because if I'm not in the mood for one thing there's usually something else interesting. If I don't have interesting books then I'm more likely to waste time on reddit / HN / twitter. (I still browse HN from time to time when things are compiling though :D)
I'm nearly the same! I've found that I can't stick to a single book at one time--when I'm jogging, I don't want to think about technical things, I want to think of big picture ideas.
When I'm driving a distance, I want to get into the nitty gritty of something technical or informative with an audiobook.
When I'm relaxing, I want something interesting but not directly related to any of my work--I don't want to get my mind running on tasks I "should be doing"
Very much the same with browsing the "eye candy" type forums, Twitter, HN, Reddit. If I've got a good book, it seems to permeate my life for the duration of reading.
Usually:
The business / technical books are the ones that I read the fastest because I can skip useless chapters and they're always one-click away when I have a few minutes to wait.The hard science are the ones that take the most time.. sometimes it can take me weeks to read a few pages, and I often need to do side research to understand what I'm reading.
I think the fact that I have different choices help me read more because if I'm not in the mood for one thing there's usually something else interesting. If I don't have interesting books then I'm more likely to waste time on reddit / HN / twitter. (I still browse HN from time to time when things are compiling though :D)