Games you can play while chatting / learning / reading / doing stuff?

Hearthstone.. But it has time limit for each turn..

Civilization V

Papers, Please

Mojang's new card game, Scrolls, is great for turn based strategy that you can pick up and put down at any time.

Broken Age is an enjoyable point and click that you can easily play in spurts.

Little Inferno doesn't require much or really any attention, and you can get little bits of entertainment out of it whenever you want.

Knights of Pen and Paper if you think a mildly humorous Dungeons & Dragons adventure is your thing.

Not sure if this suits your needs but perhaps Crusader Kings 2.

Its not turn based, and can be incredibly deep and complicated overall, but you can choose to play on five separate speeds and pause the game whenever you like so you can play it like a turn based game if you want.

And if you dont do stuff sometimes it can take a long time for things to happen so there is also that.

Civ 5 and XCOM

Grand Strategy (like aforementioned CK2) is always a good bet (only if you're decent at them, though)

Otherwise, as odd as it may sound, when I was studying for my psychology exam, I used to play FPS sometimes (CoD4 Search and Destroy Mode mainly), always learning while waiting to respawn.

Playing games while learning/reading ? What the actual f ?

i think dungeons of dreadmore isnt a good option, i played the game in permadeath mode, and when you werent completely focused you can die way to easily and waste all your progress.

you shouldnt play while learning, because you will lose the stuff you learned within 15 minutes of videogaming

What about Kerbal Space Program? You can play it without touching the "accelerate time button" so it is more realistic and you don't get bored by the wait. Also it has a great "learning atmosphere" to concentrate.

I'd say racing games or platformers.
Recently I've taken the habit of playing Nail'd or Rogue Legacy while listening to the Cracked Podcast. Works fine for me.

Desktop dungeons
Frozen synapse

Game Dev Tycoon.

Arena of Heroes you can take turns

there is Reus

Starcraft 2 Grand Master League

are non-steam freeware games an option?

if yes: Dungelot

Binding of Isaac? Are you mad? That game requires 110% attention at pretty much all time. I disagree with FTL for the same reason.

Anything turn based or exploration based would probably suit.

Pretty much most of the Tower Defense games, the majority of them are wave-based so they pause at the end of each one. Here is my favorite one even though it's non-steam.

CS:GO. Well the way I play it these days, my CS skills have long since abandoned me since the early days of CS:Source. It allows for plenty of reading in between my death and the start of the next round ;)

civ 5, xcom, divinity original sin

proteus is probably good for that since nothing attacks you and you can't die just wander around aimlessly

Any game where you have to grind.

right xD