Is It OK to Read Multiple Books at a Time?

On parallel reading experience

I am a serial multi-reader. There’s hardly ever a period when I’m not reading more than one book. Throughout the years I have heard different opinions on the phenomenon: some say it’s great fun and a freeing experience, some that it’s an unhealthy habit that hinders one’s literary perception and reading comprehension. You can agree with either point — it’s totally up to you. In this essay I want to research my own reasons for reading multiple books at a time and try to decide whether it’s good for me.

I think it started for me in school when national education and I didn’t always see eye to eye on what should constitute my reading list. Having learnt my first (out of 5) alphabet at 3 and having started reading at 4 I was instantly turned into a religiously avid reader and refused to let go of books forever. My grandmother fuelled my reading passion by bringing fresh supplies from the library every day after work. She would come back with a pile no longer surprised that I had gone through the previous one in a day and could tell about everything I had read in great detail. I was five at the time.

As you can imagine when I stepped over my school threshold at 6 I was somewhat experienced in at least children literature (although I managed to lay my hands on some adult books lying around my parents’ and grandparents’ houses as well) and had certain expectations.

Being a fast reader I also went through my reading lists pretty fast and needed more. So once my homework was done my mother tried to satisfy my urge by taking me to a small bookshop. Having realised though that her ever-book-hungry child chews through pages like a mighty caterpillar she switched to the library, not being able to healthily afford a new book every day.

As the books grew thicker and more difficult I slowed down and it started taking me a couple of days to go through one. Since I also needed to read for school I started reading 2-3 books at a time. As the years passed, my schedule thickened as well the plots of the books I was reading for myself and my daily reading list would expand to as many as 3-4 or sometimes even 5 books at a time.

I cared to remember my school books only for as long as it took me to pass the next test (with some exceptions, of course), my own readings however stayed with me for years to come, some even until today.

I know I am lucky — my memory that allowed me to cite 5-page long poems at the age of 2 (I couldn’t read them and remembered because my mum would read them to me as a bedtime story — I still remember parts of them by the way!) also let me remember lots of things at once and keep track of all the stories I was reading.

The only exception for my multiple-reading schedule was when the book gripped me so much I couldn’t let go, it still happens to me at times.

Now I know how it all started but why do I go on like this?

One of the reasons is my multi-linguism. Since I speak 5 languages it doesn’t feel comfortable to restrain myself to one language at a time and wait for 4 more books to read in it again, so usually when I read a couple of books at once, they are in 2-3 different languages.

The other — is genre variety. To me it makes sense to switch between a novel, a poem collection, a non-fiction book and a play or short-story collection. Again because I don’t want to wait and start a different genre before I finish.

I have already written twice about my inability to wait so, I guess, the third reason is plain impatience. And I shouldn’t discard habit as a reason for such reading as well.

Having said that, I am aware that there are people who haven’t got the capacity to parallel read and that is absolutely fine, since reading, just like any other mental activity is strictly individual and by no means should be compared. Everyone will be better off sticking to the comfortable reading model.

But how to realise what reading model is comfortable? How can one know whether they can safely parallel read without hindering comprehension or cutting down the potential takeaways from the book?

I have communicated with many people on the topic and most of the time it’s obvious whether or not one is comfortable reading a couple of books at once. Because if it isn’t, you realise that you lose concentration, mix up concepts, characters, plotlines, struggle to sum up what you are reading about and don’t remember much of what you have read.

However if you are still unsure whether reading several books at a time is a safe bet for you you can try both ways: reading only one book until you finish it and then reading two books for a stretch of time. Compare the sensations. Once you finish just one book, try to remember it, write down your thoughts on it, discuss it with someone or, at least try to retell it. Then do the same with the books you’ve read simultaneously.

Since the books are likely to be different by genre, writing style, difficulty or even language, it’s not going to be a clean experience so you might need to repeat the experiment a couple of times before you’re absolutely sure. But the rule of thumb is — do it only if it feels comfortable.

I am still curious about other people’s experiences and would like to know what yours is. Share your take on the topic in the comments, I’d be delighted to have a chat about it!