A short list beats a long one. I keep three books going at any time: one for the morning, one for the evening, and one that is older than anyone I know.
The morning book is usually non-fiction, something I can read a chapter of with coffee and then think about on a walk. The evening book is a novel, and I am strict about it being one I actually want to read rather than one I feel I should. The old book is the slow one. It can sit on the side table for a month.
This season
For the mornings: a field guide to trees, read cover to cover rather than looked things up in. It turns out to be a quietly funny book, and I can now tell a sugar maple from a red one at forty paces, which is a skill with no practical value whatsoever.
For the evenings: a long, slow family novel set over three generations in a coastal town. Nothing much happens and I am enjoying every page.
The old one: a collection of essays on walking written well over a century ago. Half of it is wonderful and half of it is a man complaining about the weather, which is also, in its way, wonderful.
An old book is a conversation with someone who cannot interrupt you, which makes you a better listener.
I will report back in winter. Probably with the same three books, still unfinished.