I’m usually not successful at reading more than one book at a time, but I’ve never tried reading a non-fiction book at the same time I’m reading a book of short fiction. It seems like between chapters of one, I can read a story or two in the other, and vice versa.
This is what I am trying to do now. Way back in the summer of 1998, just over 10 years ago, I read and loved Andrew Chaikin’s A Man on the Moon, which was the basis for the outstanding HBO miniseries, From the Earth to the Moon. I am now re-reading Chaikin’s book, but this time it is more in a research capacity for a possible story.
If I should manage to finish both books by the end of the year, it will bring my total reading this year to a hair under 4 million words.