Reading several books at once without losing your place

You will hear that a book should be finished before another is started. Plenty of readers do the opposite and don't mention it: a bedside book, a travel book, one they only open for work. It holds together as long as each has a reason to be there.

One book per purpose

The evening novel has different needs from the reference work you read a chapter at a time. If two books ask for the same frame of mind, one of them waits. That's all.

Three at once is a reasonable ceiling. Past that, you start abandoning books without noticing.

Knowing where you are

The trap isn't parallel reading, it's forgetting the page. Bookmarks slip and digital ones get lost. Write down the page at the end of each sitting, even roughly, and picking up again takes ten seconds.

In Qimtar each book in progress keeps its page and its pace, and you see all three together with the finish date you set for each.

When to let one go

A book you haven't opened in a month is telling you something. Shelve it without guilt, with the page where you stopped. You can come back in a year, and the record is waiting.