Are You a One Book (at at time) Woman?

Like most of us, guest blogger Jamie Layton is a busy multitasking super woman. In today's post she takes us through the labyrinth of her reading month. Normal or not? You decide.

O.M.G. This has literally been one of those months where I haven’t had any time to read! This week alone brought to my door a Faberge Egg social studies project, a middle school talent show (and attendant dress rehearsal), three high school baseball games (one tour of duty in the concession stand) and to end the week tonight, a membership recognition event (of which I am in charge) at the Club. Oh yea, did I mention book club on Wednesday that I faked my way through? Unfortunately Jean Baker’s Mary Todd Lincoln lost me at hello. The first sixty pages read like the bible with ‘this Todd begat that Parker begat that Evans’ and so on and so forth. I can say that based on the rest of the group’s input, which was pretty mixed but generally positive, I will be trying to tackle it sometime in the future.

But as I look back over the month and wonder what I was reading I realize that the reason I probably can’t remember is because I was generally reading more than one thing at a time. I devoured Paco Underhill’s Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping and got lots of ideas for the shop; but at night I was still turning to Fateful Night, the latest offering by Jerry Radford, my favorite self-published author. I’ve also been trying to learn more about the art of the humorous essay so have been juggling Nora Ephron and Erma Bombeck like a man with two prom dates in a sophomoric chick flick who’s got The Nine Rooms of Happiness by Lucy Danziger waiting in the corner. Then there are the magazines- on a recent girl’s weekend I flipped from Vanity Fair to Vogue to Natural Health. And I do mean flipped as in back and forth. Seems this is not the month for me to actually start and finish anything. (Except the Underhill book.)

So here’s my Friday morning question to all you Reading Group Guide blog readers- are you the type of reader who finds it possible to read more than one thing at a time? If so, how often do you find yourself doing this? Do you find that you have to be switching back and forth between genres, say a business casual by day, romance novel at night? Or can you have more than one mystery going at a time? Do you think this is a phenomenon more likely experienced during a season of change (like Spring) or is it more related to our own psyche? Do you think we are normal? Is this healthy reading? Your comments on this topic could make me feel better. Or at the very least, please pass the Ritalin.

-- Jamie Layton, Manager - Duck's Cottage Coffee & Bookshop