diff --git a/wsds/ws_dataset.py b/wsds/ws_dataset.py
index 35dd5cd..278a0ef 100644
--- a/wsds/ws_dataset.py
+++ b/wsds/ws_dataset.py
@@ -234,7 +234,7 @@ def __len__(self):
     #
     # SQL support, using Polars
     #
-    def _parse_sql_queries_polars(self, *queries, shard_subsample=1, rng=None, shard_pipe=None):
+    def _parse_sql_queries_polars(self, *queries, shard_subsample=1, rng=None, shard_pipe=None, parallel_collect=False):
         """Parses SQL queries via Polars to:
         - extract the Polars expressions for each query
         - use the expressions to build a list of column dirs to load shards from"""
@@ -336,6 +336,8 @@ def _parse_sql_queries_polars(self, *queries, shard_subsample=1, rng=None, shard
                     f"No usable shards found (columns: {', '.join(column_dirs)}) for dataset in: {str(self.dataset_root)}"
                 )
 
+        if parallel_collect:
+            return exprs, pl.concat(pl.collect_all(row_merge)).lazy()
         return exprs, pl.concat(row_merge)
 
     def _check_for_subsampling(self, shard_subsample):
@@ -375,6 +377,7 @@ def sql_select(
         shard_subsample=None,
         rng=42,
         shard_pipe=None,
+        parallel_collect: bool = False,
     ) -> pl.DataFrame | pl.LazyFrame:
         """Given a list of SQL expressions, returns a Polars DataFrame/ LazyFrame with the results."""
         if isinstance(rng, int):
@@ -384,6 +387,7 @@ def sql_select(
             shard_subsample=self._check_for_subsampling(shard_subsample),
             rng=rng,
             shard_pipe=shard_pipe,
+            parallel_collect=parallel_collect,
         )
 
         if return_as_lazyframe: