I see this question come up every so often on social media- do you read one book at a time, or multiple books at once. I have always been in the multiple books at once camp. In fact, I recently answered this question to someone on Threads by saying that I read multiple books like it’s an Olympic event.

Most people that I come across who read multiple books will read two or three at one time, generally in different formats. Some will read more than that. But I have honestly never come across anyone else who reads as many books at one time as I do. And I’m not saying that to brag or anything, just an observation.

Now, I could probably finish books faster is I only read one at a time. Or even if I read two or three at a time. And while I don’t think it would change my overall reading numbers, it possibly could. But I’ve tried to read fewer books at once several times throughout the years, and, weirdly, felt like I read less over all rather than finishing anything faster. As a matter of fact, I am reading more books at one time than I ever have before and am finishing books at a much higher rate.

A question most people ask me is how I can keep all of the stories straight across multiple books. For me that’s the easy part. The characters are people to me, actual individuals going through their stories. So just like I can keep the different people in my life and all of their drama straight (or used to when I had a bunch of people and drama in my life), I can keep the characters and their stories straight. And when there is nonfiction involved, that’s just like high school with various textbooks for different classes.

The next question is always why. And I don’t know if I know I can give a full answer.

Part of it is definitely that I have a short attention span, so need to switch up the story I’m reading frequently. I generally make the switch point a chapter, unless it’s a really long one, then I’ll look for a smaller break within the chapter.

Then there is the structure aspect. There is nothing I like more than having a list of reading and tasks to complete throughout the day with little checkboxes to mark off. This is something that makes my neurodivergent brain super happy. And to be fair I don’t read from every book every day, I break it up by format.

The final reason is that it’s fun. I love having a stack of books next to my bed, and a line of ebooks in progress on my Kindle and a full audio shelf in progress on my phone. It makes me happy. And that’s all that really matters anyway.

So for those of you who may not have seen my “currently reading” shelf on Goodreads (or when I posted it on Instagram), here is the answer to how many books I consider to be Olympic event level reading: I am currently reading 43 total books (25 audio, 7 Kindle, 11 physical). The format breakdown varies depending on availability at any given time.