How to Read Mutliple Books at Once

The following is a guide from my personal experience of how to read 3-4 books at the same time. My reasoning for reading multiple books at once is that I often get bored and do not fully focus if I only read a single book at a time cover to cover.

Book 1: A book with a clear plot driven narrative. One of the beauties of reading for me is that it allows me to visit another world. Get into the shoes of one of the character or be a fly on the wall. When you are reading multiple books at once the plot driven narrative is often the book that I am most consistently reading but it might only be 15 minutes a day. With plot driven narratives consistency is the most important because if you do not read the book for a week or so the world in which you are diving into or some of the more subtle nuances of the writing or characters may become more difficult to pick up.

Book 2: A book that you can put down for a while. This book is the most dependent on the readers interests but the main goal is that it is non-linear, not heavily plot influenced, and does not have a large knowledge barrier to entry. The two most often examples of this type of book I give are Tuesdays with Morey by Mitch Album or a book of poetry. Each chapter in Tuesday's with Morey is its own anecdote about life. Books that do not need to be read cover to cover to give the reader value.

Professional interest book: This type of book takes components of the previous two types of book but is different enough to necessitate its own category. Professional interest books for me are often leadership or psychology books - they are usually abstract and philosophical. I may read the book and wholly disagree with the points that the author makes but this type of book is an investment in your understanding in a more complete way. These type of books are subject driven rather than plot driven - but can use stories to hammer home a specific point. An example of this type of book that has seen mainstream acclaim recently are books by Malcolm Gladwell. I find these types of books valuable because they expand my knowledge base and allow for me to have a greater understanding of the connectivity of everything.

I hope this was helpful to people as I have been asked by many people of the best ways to read multiple books at once. I have not been reading as much as I had previously due to focusing more on experience which I touched on in another blog post about personal growth. Would love to hear more of other peoples perspective on this - if they read multiple books at once or ways in which your method differs from my own.

-Tim