the publisher considers the implication of reading two books at once.

What to make of the recent spate of women in his life who use the word 'baby' when addressing their men? Is this good, and what does it say about the existing condition btween men and women? Is it a generic or an intimate, since he'd heard it used in each situation?

 

Just yesterday, ordering the $4.35 lunch special at a chinese restuarant on Clement and 7th, he'd made the mistake at pointing to a tray of hot food, hoping to make himself understood to the woman behind the counter that he wanted duck as one of the two choices of offered as part of the 'special'. He speaking no Mandarin and she speaking no English, nodded to one another as if each was being understood.

However, they had not understood one another and when he reached his table with his food, he lifted up the flap on the plastic container and found he'd been served pork liver which were, after all, in the tray next to the duck. While it's possible to read two books at once, it is not possible to finish reading two books at the same time. A good book might be written by a man or a woman who reads two books at the same time, finishes reading one book and so adds a third, taking the one he or she has finished reading out of circulation and replacing the finished book with a new one and so on, thereby reading an infinite number of books and making his or her own book by reporting on the readings.