أقرأ عدة كتب.

In careful Modern Standard Arabic, it is pronounced:

أَقْرَأُ عِدَّةَ كُتُبٍ
approximately: ʔaqraʔu ʕiddata kutubin

A few helpful notes:

• أ at the beginning of أقرأ is a hamza, a glottal stop, like the break in uh-oh.
• ق is qāf, a deeper sound than English k, produced farther back in the mouth.
• The final ء in أقرأ is another hamza, so the word ends with another glottal stop.
• ع in عدة is the letter ʿayn, a consonant English does not have.
• In less formal pronunciation, the full case endings are often not clearly pronounced.

Because the verb أقرأ already tells you the subject is I.

In the present tense, Arabic verbs include subject information inside the verb itself. The prefix أـ on أقرأ marks first person singular, so أنا is not necessary.

You can say:

أنا أقرأ عدة كتب.

But that usually adds emphasis, contrast, or clarity. The short sentence without أنا is completely normal.

It can mean either one, depending on context.

The Arabic imperfect/present tense often covers both:

• I read
• I am reading
• sometimes even I do read

So أقرأ عدة كتب could describe:

• a current action
• a general habit
• something true around the present time

Arabic relies more on context than English does for this distinction.

Because they are doing two different jobs.

• The first أ is part of the present-tense verb form. It marks I.
• The final ء is part of the verb’s root.

The root of قرأ (to read) is:

ق ر أ

So when you make the present tense I read, you get:

أ + قرأ = أقرأ

So the word naturally ends up with two hamzas: one grammatical, one lexical.

Not exactly. In this sentence, عدة behaves more like a noun used as a quantifier than like a regular adjective.

A useful way to think of it is:

• عدة كتب = a number of books / several books

This structure is an iḍāfa (construct phrase):

• عدة is the first noun
• كتب is the second noun that specifies what kind of عدة

So it is not working exactly like an English adjective. That is why its grammar does not behave like a normal adjective’s grammar.

Because عدة is connected to the following word in an iḍāfa phrase.

The final ة (tāʾ marbūṭa) is often pronounced:

• like -a / -ah when stopping on the word by itself
• like -t when the word is grammatically connected to what follows

So:

• alone in pause: something like ʕiddah
• in this sentence: ʕiddata kutubin

That is why learners often hear a t sound even though the word ends in ة.

Because كتب is the normal plural of كتاب (book), and it is a broken plural.

Arabic has two major kinds of plural:

1. sound plurals: made with endings
2. broken plurals: made by changing the internal pattern of the word

Here:

• singular: كتاب
• plural: كتب

This is very common in Arabic. You cannot always predict these plurals just from English-style rules, so they often need to be learned individually.

Because the phrase is indefinite: it means several books, not the several books.

Also, عدة كتب is an iḍāfa phrase, and in this kind of structure:

• the first noun (عدة) does not take ال in this usage
• the definiteness of the whole phrase depends on the second noun

Here, كتب is indefinite, so the whole phrase is indefinite.

In fully vowelled text, كتب would actually be written with tanwīn:

• كُتُبٍ

But in normal unvowelled Arabic writing, those short vowels and tanwīn are usually not shown.

In fully vowelled, careful MSA, the sentence is:

أَقْرَأُ عِدَّةَ كُتُبٍ

Here is what is happening:

• أقرأُ: the verb is in the indicative, so it ends in -u
• عدةَ: this is the direct object, so it is accusative
• كتبٍ: this is the second part of the iḍāfa, so it is genitive

A very important point: The direct object is grammatically the whole phrase عدة كتب, but the head of that phrase is عدة, so عدة gets the accusative ending.

Because it is the second noun in an iḍāfa construction.

In Arabic, the second noun of an iḍāfa is normally genitive, no matter what role the whole phrase plays in the sentence.

So in:

أقرأ عدة كتب

the whole phrase عدة كتب functions as the object of أقرأ, but inside that phrase:

• عدة is the head noun
• كتب is the noun attached to it in iḍāfa, so it becomes genitive

This is a very common Arabic pattern.

Yes. One common alternative is:

أقرأ كتبًا عديدةً

This also means something like I read several/many books, but the structure is different:

• كتبًا is the direct object
• عديدةً is an adjective meaning numerous / many

By contrast, in your original sentence:

• عدة كتب is a quantifier phrase, more like a number of books

Both are natural, but أقرأ عدة كتب is a very standard way to express I read several books.