So Many Books, So Little Time [Hardcover]

Sara Nelson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 9, 2003

The well-known publishing correspondent and self-described "readaholic" chronicles a year spent reading-and the surprises it brought.

In early 2002, Sara Nelson-editor, reporter, reviewer, mother, daughter, wife, and compulsive reader-set out to chronicle a year's worth of reading, to explore how the world of books and words intermingled with children, marriage, friends, and the rest of the "real" world. She had a system all set up: fifty-two weeks, fifty-two books . . . and it all fell apart the first week. That's when she discovered that books chose her as much as she chose them, and the rewards and frustrations they brought were nothing she could plan for: "In reading, as in life, even if you know what you're doing, you really kind of don't."

From Solzhenitsyn to Laura Zigman, Catherine M. to Captain Underpants, this is the captivating result. It is a personal memoir filled with wit, charm, insight, infectious enthusiasm-and observations on everything from Public Books (the ones we pretend we're reading), lending trauma and the idiosyncrasies of sex scenes ("The mingling of bodies and emotions and fluids is one thing. But reading about it: now that's personal") to revenge books, hype, the stresses of recommendation (What does it mean when someone you like hates the book you love?), the odd reasons we pick up a book in the first place, and how to put it down if we don't like it ("The literary equivalent of a bar mitzvah, the moment at which you look at yourself and announce: Today I am an adult."). Throughout, So Many Books, So Little Time is pure delight-a work at once funny, wise, and rueful: enough to make a passionate reader out of anybody.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"I have a New Year's plan," Nelson writes in the prologue to this charming diary of an unapologetic "readaholic." Her goal: to read a book a week for a year and try "to get down on paper what I've been doing for years in my mind: matching up the reading experience with the personal one and watching where they intersect-or don't." Armed with a list of books, the author, a Glamour senior contributing editor, the New York Observer's publishing columnist and a veteran book reviewer, begins her 52-week odyssey. She doesn't necessarily stick to her list, which includes classics ("the homework I didn't do in college"), books everyone's talking about (like David McCullough's John Adams) and titles as diverse as Call It Sleep, by Henry Roth, and Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting. But she succeeds in sharing her infectious enthusiasm for literature in general, the act of reading and individual books and authors. Along the way, Nelson unearths treasures. She becomes enamored of David Mura's Turning Japanese, a memoir that helps her understand her Japanese-American husband better, and looks to Henry Dunow's The Way Home, about coaching baseball, while trying to help her second-grade son improve his athletic skills. Most readers will probably come away from this love letter to books eager to pursue some of Nelson's favorites-Nora Ephron's Heartburn, perhaps, or Emma Donoghue's Slammerkin-which is what makes Nelson's reflections inspiring and worthwhile.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

...Nelson is a charming companion... -- Time Out New York, October 16-23, 2003

...a fitting conclusion to a work that will make readers run to the shelf to discover which book beckons next. -- Library Journal, starred review, September 15, 2003

A smart, witty, utterly original memoir about how every book we read becomes a part of us. -- Augusten Burroughs

Book clubs...will find this...memoir a handy reading guide, while...book junkies will devour every page. -- St. Petersburg Times, December 2, 2003

This is a wonderful read in itself and an invaluable source of books to be explored. -- Barbara Wyatt, Elle

[Nelson's] passion for the page shines throughout. -- People, November 24, 2003

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult; Fourth Edition edition (October 9, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399150838
• ISBN-13: 978-0399150838
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (126 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,203,287 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

108 of 119 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Constant Dilemma, October 13, 2003

By 

Jon Linden (Warren, N.J. United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: So Many Books, So Little Time (Hardcover)

READ ME! That is what Sara Nelson's new book, So Many Books, So Little Time screamed out to me when it arrived. I have so many of the same problems. I always have at least 500 books in my "to read" pile, and they are triaged in importance, the order of which is subject to change at any second depending on my needs as a reader. So, when I saw this book, I figured it will bring a solution to my dilemma. I was wrong, and will explain why as I go on.

As early as the Prologue and the first chapter, so appropriately named, "Great Expectations," as I believe it expressed Sara's intent at the beginning of this reading project, and it expressed the reader's state upon entering her creation; I was completely committed. And I continued to feel great expectations with each chapter that I read. While it did take me 3 days to read the book, longer than it should have, I did take to carrying it everywhere with me in those 3 days, a behavior that is rare for me.

The book describes Sara Nelson's one-year journey to read books of her selection and to write about the experience. But as all of us `read-a-holics' know, the next book we read is always driven by circumstances that we cannot predict. Thus it was for Ms. Nelson as well. She had a well chosen list of books she wanted to read, but ended up reading several that she did not intend to, and not reading some that she did intend to. This process could have been predicted by any well-addicted reader. We all know, that what we want to read next, may not be what we thought we would want to read next, when we started what we are reading now.

It was with great pleasure that the author mentions Anne Lamott's book Bird By Bird as I felt from chapter 2 that Nelson's book had the same, `look and feel' as Lamott's; but with a very significant difference. Lamott is trying to teach us how to self-discipline ourselves to write. Nelson is telling us what happens to us when we read. And in so many ways, she was right on. In page after page, Nelson explains what she looks for in a book, why she likes it, and sometimes why she doesn't like it, and sometimes, nothing at all.

Her November 25 chapter is particularly interesting and speaks of opening lines. She is right; you only get one opening line. And had she not mentioned Melville and opening lines, I would have completely missed the full implications of her opening line, which I went back to read after I read that chapter. "Call me Insomniac." Despite the overt reference to the story of the Great White Whale, I would have missed it, because her first line did exactly what she wanted it to do, it captured me and reeled me in, because, like her, I am an insomniac.

In the final analysis, I would recommend that all read-a-holics put this book into their "MUST READ" pile with special prejudice toward bringing it to the top of the pile. As read-a-holics, we must stick together. This book is one of the finest books for serious readers I have found. And she did NOT solve my problem; because she suggested so many books I had never read yet, that I now have another 5,000 pages on my shelf as recommendations. Be careful, Sara reads everything, even those 1200 page tomes that we often avoid, but shouldn't. Happy Reading!

73 of 81 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Secret Pass, October 14, 2003

By 

Eric Wilson "novelist" (Nashville, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: So Many Books, So Little Time (Hardcover)

To read Sara Nelson's book is to obtain a top-secret pass. Into the halls of power and might? No. Into the corridors of a passionate reader's mind, yes. In fact, her ode to literature might be titled "Finding Mr. Write." She points out, quite fittingly, the relationship between readers and their chosen printed companions. If you, like Ms. Nelson and this reviewer, have ever fawned over an intriguing title on the shelf like a teenager harboring a crush, then you'll adore the insights and shared intimacies of "So Many Books, So Little Time."

Nelson attacks her subject with, uh, uninhibited desire. Examining a year of her own reading habits, she unveils the tendencies and quibbles and sparks of heated excitement found between the covers. (Of printed matter, of course--don't let her infatuations confuse you.) The metaphor is appropriate, if you share her love for books. There's the starry-eyed introduction, the clumsy yet heady getting-to-know-you stage, the culminating union of heart and soul. Our mothers tried to warn us, though: "Be careful, I tell ya. Most boys are up to no good." Yeah, and not all books are as wonderful as they appear; not all classics live up to our expectations.

Nelson's unafraid of pointing fingers here. She tells us which ones left her uninvolved and clammy. While dispensing insights into her own roles as wife and mother, she also reveals truths she's discovered through the joys (and travails) of reading. Not all books are for everyone. Not everyone finds a match the first time around. Nelson never loses faith, however, in the idea that reader and book will find each other eventually.

In this search for Mr. Write, Nelson keeps us laughing at her, at ourselves, and the wacky world around us. For the jaded among us, beware...You might find yourself falling in love all over again.

31 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Too Many Pages, Too Little Content, December 31, 2004

By 

Bookish and Proud "I Read Cereal Boxes" (Raleigh, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: So Many Books, So Little Time (Hardcover)

This is not a book about reading. This is a self-indulgent memoir full of incredibly dull personal history ("My mother gets on my nerves!" "I have sibling rivalry issues with my sister!") literary name-dropping ("I stayed in the Vermont lodge of the great Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn because I am the friend of one of his stepsons' widows!"), and obsession over the fact that the (white) author's husband is Asian ("My husband is Asian!" "Did I mention that I'm in an interracial marriage?"). Bizarrely, there is very little discussion of the books the author reads or of her emotional reactions to them, good or bad. For someone who is supposedly "passionate" about reading, she certainly makes the topic uninteresting.

I made it through page 69, and by that time (March 15), the author had given up on reading "Funnymen" and "Miracle at St Anna". So why should I avoid these books? Well, "Funnymen" clashed too much with the solemn atmosphere at the Vermont lodge, and "Miracle at St Anna" "just doesn't work". I could get more information than that just by scanning the Amazon reviews for those books, and I plan to.

I strongly suspect that the only reason this book saw print is due to the author's publishing connections. One of the novels she reads is in the form of a spiral-bound proof lent to her by her sister, who had been using it for review purposes. And then there are asides like, "There's the novel by the writer I knew of only by reputation, until he became my favorite boss".

And no, she doesn't read a book a week for a year. In Appendix B, the author notes:

"So did you make your book-a-week goal? people have been asking me. The real answer: Yes and no. Sometimes I read a book in a day. Some things took a couple of weeks. And some that I read I didn't write about. The final tally: a lot more than fifty-two books, even if I can't name absolutely everything I dipped into or skimmed through."

Um. So the point of this book, aside from self-absorbed ramblings that would be barely interesting even if I knew Sara Nelson and her family personally, is exactly what?

For readers who enjoy books that are actually about reading, I heartily recommend Nancy Pearl's "Book Lust" as well as "Bookmarks" magazine.