How to Read Sixteen Books

A few months ago, fantasy author Jo Walton recapped her January reading for Tor’s Reactor blog, and dropped a tantalizing hint that she juggles multiple in-progress books at once:

You know how I read a lot of things at once? (I read sixteen things at once. I have a system.) Two of the things I am reading are always books of letters.

I read this, due to my temporally-limited mortal mind, one sentence at a time, and my thoughts were, after each one:

1. That’s more than I usually read at once, but I respect the hustle.
2. Oh, a system? Interesting. 16 is an odd pick, but I guess you have to cap yourself somewhere.
3. Two are always books of letters? That makes sense to me, I like books of letters. Wait, so it’s not just that she caps her reading to sixteen, she has sixteen categories into which she slots the books she’s currently reading. That’s a good idea.

I left a comment asking for more details, but I suspect Jo Walton just sends her writing to the editor and doesn’t visit the Reactor blog herself, and I received no response. After a week of anxiously awaiting an update, I decided to make my own system.

You see, I’m a mood reader, and my ephemeral soul often changes its mood before I even finish a book. I naturally have several books going at once, but without any system for organizing them I often start a new book that suits the same mood as a book I’m already reading, with the result that the earlier one just sits there on bottom of the stack and new books are continually placed on top of it. Chaos. With the right system, I could make sure I always have one book, and only one book, in progress for any mood.

I knew immediately my list would be half fiction and half non-fiction, and then it hit me that must be why she has sixteen slots in her list: it’s a power of two. Using four layers of bifurcation, you can neatly divide things up until you get exactly the fuzzy categories you want. My first layer was fiction/non-fiction; then, for both sides, long-form/short-form, leaving me room simultaneously for four novels, four books of short stories, four non-fiction books, and four books of essays or other non-fiction matter. The four novels are split into four genres; the short stories are divided into anthologies and collections; the non-fiction books are separated by subject matter; the short non-fiction bear explaining in detail. The final list became, with what I am reading currently in italics:

1. One science-fiction, fantasy, or historical novel. The common theme is those works all try to immerse you into a different world; I figure one at a time is probably the respectful way to engage with each (at least for me). Annihilation by Jeff VanDermeer.
2. One crime or horror novel. I don’t normally think of crime and horror fiction as similar; I don’t shelve them together in my store, but here I think it makes sense to group them. A Purple Place for Dying by John D. McDonald.
3. One book by P.G. Wodehouse. He is my favorite author, and I would like to read every Wodehouse before I die. I have reflected before that sometimes it feels like I can’t read him at all because I’m worried I’ll run out, or I need to read him immediately because I might die tomorrow. Ensuring that I have one going at all times is a nice, mindful compromise. The White Feather.
4. One “et cetera” book. This is for literary or general fiction, romance, contemporary humor, or anything else shelved in fiction that doesn’t fit any of the genres I have otherwise set aside room for already. Fear of Flying by Erica Jong.
5. An anthology of short stories. Bookselling pedants, which I regret to inform you I am, will tell you that an “anthology” is a volume of works (usually short stories or poetry) by different authors, and a “collection” is a volume of works by the same author. Anthologies are usually selected thematically, based on something the stories or, less often, the authors all have in common. The Big Book of Classic Fantasy, edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer.
6. Ditto. The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps, edited by Otto Penzler.
7. A collection of short stories. Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link.
8. Ditto. The Wind’s Twelve Quarters by Ursula K. LeGuin.
9. A book about science or the history of science. In the Company of Bears by Benjamin Kilham.
10. A how-to manual for some skill I would like to learn. I am constantly collecting new hobbies, and the (usually easily surmounted) hurdle I place before myself before getting into one is to read a book about it. The First 20 Minutes by Gretchen Reynolds.
11. A book on the humanities: history, philosophy, the arts, literary criticism all go here. The History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell.
12. Ditto. The Sounds of Poetry by Robert Pinsky.
13. A book of essays. Essays about anything, by any author or authors. Whatever works! Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard.
14. What I have taken to calling a “miscellany”: a book of facts, trivia, anecdotes, quotes, or witticisms, intended to be read in short chunks when time and attention are scarce. I usually read these when I am sleepy or not at my brightest. The best of these are the QI Books of General Ignorance, if you still don’t quite have a handle on what I mean. Do Fish Drink Water? by Bill McLain.
15. A book of letters, or a diary, or a memoir or autobiography, or a biography (about someone other than a historical figure, whose biography would go into 11 or 12). Meanwhile, There Are Letters: The Correspondance of Eudora Welty and Ross MacDonald.
16. Out of respect for Jo Walton’s pioneering work, ditto. Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters.

I have been using this system for about a month, and finished a handful of books. I have made progress on a handful more than had just been sitting gathering digital dust on my ereader.

In addition to these, I also have five other books in progress at any given time:

1. One audiobook of any kind. Currently I am listening to Doom Guy: A Life in First Person, the autobiography of John Romero.
2. One print book of any kind (I always make sure I am reading a print book when I’m at my store!). Right now that’s I See By My Outfit by Peter S. Beagle, in case I meet him this weekend at Rewind Book Fair.
3. One volume of The Complete Peanuts. At time of writing I’m in 1981-1982.
4. The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge, which Ken Jennings has recommended to anybody studying for Jeopardy!, and which I have on my phone to replace doomscrolling. If I ever finish it, I may reread it, or I may replace it with The Harvard Classics.
5. One from the shelf of small books I have in my bathroom, which is a digital detox zone.

For arbitrary reasons, these five books do not factor into the above 16-book system, and when I tell people how many books I am currently reading, I am likely to say sixteen.

I would ask you for your thoughts, reactions, questions, and concerns about such a system, but I haven’t set up comments on this blog yet and I am toying with the idea of never doing so. But I did make an Instagram reel on this subject, and it would be great for the ✨ Algorithm ✨ if you went and left comments there:

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A post shared by SillyWackyZany Books (@silly.wacky.zany.books)

The eagle-eyed among you will no doubt have noticed that the books in this reel are not the books I just listed; let’s keep that little bit of show-business magic between us. They’re all from my print TBR (or, in a couple cases, books in my store that are also on my ebook TBR), so it’s a venial sin.