I've found that they don't directly compete. I usually read books when I'm a.) mentally spent and unable to work on much of anything intellectually or b.) in a place where I don't have a computer, eg. the subway. If I weren't reading I'd probably be watching TV or posting on news.YC or something like that.
Also - I'd highly recommend against reading only 5-6 titles on a subject. You want that 95% overlap, because the point of reading books isn't to gather information (there's Google for that...), it's to train your gut instinct with other people's mistakes. All books are highly contextual - after all, other people's advice is only relevant when their situation is similar to yours - so you need to triangulate between them and figure out what's relevant in which situations. You're trying to develop the intuition that says "No, this is a bad idea" when you're about to do something stupid, and the way to do that is to read enough about stupid things other people have done that your mode of thinking shifts you away from that.
You know you've succeeded when you forget your sources.
Success alone is word we shall use with care. Successful at is better. And you are successful when your grandkids' kids read about you (of course in a positive manner) in their class. Most likely you won't be here to know that you have succeeded.