7 More Reasons Why Reading Books in Parallel Is Good for You

How self-improvement can become an effortless byproduct of a favorite activity

I love reading books in parallel. I even approach it as a fun game. And reading each book feels like a fun mini-game or a game in itself.

Most of a couple of years since I officially allowed myself to read many books in parallel, I thought it was a quirky habit of mine. Partially because when I was sharing this love, many people around me were surprised how possibly I could be doing that. That related primarily to reading books for pleasure and not for work.

So, I haven’t been thinking much about this feature to my reading passion until I met someone who also enjoyed reading books in parallel. Hm, I thought, I was not alone.

I haven’t dwelled on this thought long and simply continued with my reading, writing, working, caring, relaxing, living.

But this summer vacation gave me space to read more, also in terms of reading books in parallel, and to realize why I might be enjoying it so much.

I became aware that there are many reasons why reading books in parallel makes sense for me.

After a quick search of why others might find it worthful, I set out to find at least five additional reasons why it could be useful for us, in general.

To be more precise, I wanted to find out what are the five benefits I get from reading books in parallel. I quickly discovered that there are more than five.

But first, let’s see why people read books in parallel.

Why Others Read Books in Parallel

The first two hits Google gave me on reading books in parallel were the following (in the order they were listed):

In the first blog post, Eddie Wharton lists the following three benefits of reading books in parallel (Note: they are shorter here, for the sake of brevity. Go to the post above to read his article to the full):

“I enjoy reading more. The key for me has been to pick a few books on very different topics. When I am looking for something to do with free time, it is very likely that I am willing to read at least of one of those books. Thus I end up reading more. Reading more frequently makes it into a stable habit.”

“An increased likelihood of stumbling onto a new insight. Ideas from books stay much less contained in their author’s narrowly defined context. They mix with each other and my day to day. It constantly surprises me how I find parallels across different topics.”

“Reading is more applicable to my life. One side effect of reading multiple books at once is that I progress through them all slower. Reading slower also helps me internalize ideas better.” — Eddie Wharton in “Reading Books in Parallel” on A Working Theory

Niklas Göke seems to support the latter and sais

“Extract what you need at any given time, implement it, and then wait for the next challenge that warrants expert advice to arrive.” — Niklas Göke in “Read Books in Parallel, But Only When You Need Advice”

In a paragraph before that one, he recommends:

Start as many books as you like, and don’t feel bad about putting them down for months at a time. You’ll know when it’s time to return. — Niklas Göke in “Read Books in Parallel, But Only When You Need Advice”

7 More Reasons to Read Books in Parallel

I can full-heartedly confirm what Eddie Wharton and Niklas Göke said in the statements above. Their discoveries are brilliant, and all are true about what I get from reading books in parallel too.

And I discovered more as I studied my bias toward reading books in parallel as an anthropologist would do. Analogies with games helped as well.

Here they are. Reading books in parallel:

1. Is a safe environment to practice trusting your intuition

Games and play are famous for being a safe environment to learn something new, to experiment with new ideas without fearing the judgment of the result.

We’re used to being creative and playing outside of social norms when we’re inside the socially safe “magic circle” of a game. — Jane McGonigal, Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World

I experience reading many books in parallel as such a safe “magic circle” to experiment in discovering what I want to read at any given moment. In other words, I let my gut, heart, and intuition guide me toward the book that sparks my curiosity right now and not the one I think I want or should be reading.

And with that, I practice doing the same in the world outside of reading and playing games as well.

2. It helps you to uncover your hidden or suppressed dreams

I love reading in many different genres. Including memoirs. I read many of them and biographies too. And I read articles and books on the art of writing memoirs. But for some time, I thought that writing a memoir was too hard to write and, therefore, not for me.

Observing what I was reading and the growing pile of memoirs on my shelves helped me at some point to see that one of my big wishes as a writer is to write a memoir or more than one, and experiment with its short and long forms, as well as write fiction books and let them sound as if they were a memoir.

Something similar might happen to you when you read books in parallel, and by observing what you pick to read, you might discover a wish you had that was previously hidden from the plain sight and your consciousness.

3. It helps practicing switching from one task to another without moaning

I invite you to do an experiment. A game so to say. Take four or more books you want to read. Set a timer for five minutes. Take one of the books that draw your attention first. Press “start” and read the book until the timer goes off. Then do the same with the next book, and so on.

You will notice that reading books in parallel will be much simpler, more comfortable, and more fun than you might have anticipated.

Seeing this will help you realize that switching from one task to another is hard, not that much in reality, but mostly for our minds. When we actually do the switch, it is much easier to do, also when the switch isn’t planned and seems to be required entirely unexpectedly.

4. It sharpens your ability to truly listen and be less judgmental

We often compare what we hear or read to what we already know. And then we either agree or disagree with that.

However, such kind of reading or listening is not fun. It won’t teach you anything new.

True listening is something else.

“True Listening is actively listening to another with the intention of hearing what is being said from the other’s point of view.”

“This act of listening is enough to pull you into the moment. However, you have an incredibly facile mind. You can race ahead in your thoughts and finish another person’s sentence before he or she gets to the point. Or you can take exception to a word he or she uses and stop listening altogether. If you pay attention, you will see that there are many times when you have an internal commentary on what is being said rather than just listening. If you can train yourself to hear what is being said, from the speaker’s point of view, it takes you outside of time and into the current moment.”

— Ariel and Shya Kane, Working on Yourself Doesn’t Work: The 3 Simple Ideas That Will Instantaneously Transform Your Life

When you read books in parallel, you discover various opinions and various voices — also on the same topic or even making the same statement but in different ways. By switching from one book to another, from one style to another, you will find colorful nuances of what is being said and written.

You might also discover that the authors you think to disagree with have some points that you agree with, or even say and believe the same things but express them differently.

Reading books in parallel will help to open your mind and heart to the opinions of others. It did with both for me.

5. It improves your communication skills

This benefit taps directly into your improved ability to truly listen. But in addition, reading books in parallel will help you express yourself more richly than you might have done otherwise.

You can maintain your language skills only when you practice that specific language — the same goes for your communication skills. The more expression styles you learn about in parallel, the more varied your communication skills will be.

6. It helps to practice keeping promises

At least sometimes, we resent the promises we made. Instead of doing what is asked of us, we berate ourselves and demand why we made those promises.

Here’s what you can do. Offer a writer-friend to beta-read their book. In other words, offer them to act as the test reader of their manuscript.

Then read this book in parallel with others. Taking small steps in reading it and observing how the voice of your friend sounds among all those others will help you stop resentment, and you will start enjoying the book.

That will make your feedback more valuable because you will point great bits along with offering constructive critique. You might even provide helpful references for your friend from the other books you read in parallel to theirs.

This practice will help you remove drama from the other tasks you committed to and even find pleasure in attending to them.

7. Reading books in parallel naturally improves your memory

When you switch from reading one book to another, you play a word-recall game or even a sentence-recall game. The word-recall games, along with crosswords and other puzzles and games, are considered excellent for training our brains. And training our brains is one of the many possible, natural ways to improve our memory.

In Conclusion:

I ended up finding many more benefits of reading books in parallel than the five I initially set up to uncover, but I could distill them to seven in the end.

However, many or a few of these or others you might agree with, it is worth testing reading books in parallel, as you would a new game.

As with many games, there is a chance for you to enjoy it. And when you enjoy something, then you benefit from it.

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