I’m reading so many books at once, I have to schedule my reading. I think I have a problem.

I've got 14 books on the go at the moment, and 1 magazine. Plus a couple audiobooks.

I've found that when I'm reading a book, no matter how good it is, I'll often find myself wanting to also read another book. And it's now spiraled into where I am today.

Thing is, the books are from a wide variety of genres, and I feel if I were to stick with just one book, then swap to another, it would be ages until I get back to that genre, or I might never do it.

This way, I can more easily read widely and more consistently. As someone with far too many hobbies, I have found that scheduling my entertainment, as prosaic as it sounds, allows me to enjoy things more as I feel I'm not missing out on stuff by only doing the one thing I'm into at that moment.

So the way I schedule my reading is this:

I have one book that is my "main" book. This is the one I read an hour every day, preferably before bed, no distractions, a nice cuppa, and something I sit down to fully enjoy the experience with. Currently, that is Lord of the Rings.

Then I have five other books which I only read an hour once a week (though one book, I read twice a week). I treat these the same way I would a weekly television show, and despite the problems other people have, I don't have an issue telling these apart. Currently, these are Phillip Pullman's Book of Dust, Tim Berners-Lee's This is for Everyone, Dickens' Barnaby Rudge, John Gwynne's Ruin, and Sherlock Holmes (particularly good, as an hour can fit in a single story, so works very well with my TV show analogy).

Then I have a bunch of books that I try to read a bit every day, but it doesn't matter if I don't. Currently, this consists of the Harvard Classics, The Bible, The Qu'ran, Arabian Nights, and some Batman comics. In addition to that, I've got to fit in a magazine, and a couple non-fiction books.

On top of all this, I have to get through the book in my book club, which is currently the Lies of Locke Lamora, and I try to get through about ten pages of this a day (at the moment, this is difficult to stick to just ten, and could easily be the book that prevents me from reading anything else).

Audiobooks are easy to fit in when I'm doing the housework or out and about.

I think this adds up to over three or four hours of reading every day. I end up reading a lot, but taking ages to actually finish anything.