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bookinginheels's review against another edition
1.0
Normally I love books about books and I'd heard this one was good, so I was quite disappointed to find that, well, it just wasn't.
The author really irritated me at times - she's snobby enough to read two books at a time so that she can always be 'seen' reading something intellectual while keeping her 'real' books at home and is willing to forgo friendships with people who have different book tastes.
I'm not even sure she actually likes reading - she thinks people who reread lack any intellectual capacity and constantly refers to reading as 'work.' I mean, yes, she reviews books for a living but she needs to take a 'reading break' from the exhaustion from reading a book a week.
She comes across as so snobby that she profoundly annoyed me enough to affect my opinion of the book.
The author really irritated me at times - she's snobby enough to read two books at a time so that she can always be 'seen' reading something intellectual while keeping her 'real' books at home and is willing to forgo friendships with people who have different book tastes.
I'm not even sure she actually likes reading - she thinks people who reread lack any intellectual capacity and constantly refers to reading as 'work.' I mean, yes, she reviews books for a living but she needs to take a 'reading break' from the exhaustion from reading a book a week.
She comes across as so snobby that she profoundly annoyed me enough to affect my opinion of the book.
bellbo's review
3.0
A book about reading. It was a good read with a lot of personal stories from the author. HOWEVER I wasn't interested in the majority of the books she was reading during her journey.
donifaber's review
3.0
This book is a great description of the choices facing a reader. I laughed aloud at her process of selecting a book before a trip.
librarydino's review
2.0
DNF--This is sad. DNF #2 for the year just this month! As much as I liked the book talk, this is the whitest woman I have listened to in quite some time. I just could not with her...I think this is the first and only book about books that I have been unable to read. le sigh
bookwormmichelle's review
4.0
It's always interesting, whenever I read a Book-Book, to compare myself to the author. Obviously we have a love of reading in common, but it can be so interesting to see what else we have in common and different:
IN Common:
We both love books
We both view reading a book almost like falling in love and can become, um, a little disassociated with the rest of the world when in "book love"
We both have a hard time getting our husbands to read the same books we read
We both think that timing and chance and just "rightness" play and should play a big part in what book we choose to read at a certain time
We both think it's OK to ditch a bad book before it's over
We both sometimes have issues with not wanting to read a super-hyped book that "everyone else" is reading
Different:
We have almost NO similar taste in books--I have no interest at all in most of what she actually read. IN fact, I'd run from it.
She did not particularly read a lot as a child
She does not like to read aloud to HER child (this one totally boggled me--if there's anything better than reading to myself it's reading to one of my children!)
She thinks anyone who hasn't been seriously tempted to commit adultery is lying
She's very New York and I'm very Midwest
Interesting book, good to "meet" another reader, but gleaned almost nothing for my own to-read list
IN Common:
We both love books
We both view reading a book almost like falling in love and can become, um, a little disassociated with the rest of the world when in "book love"
We both have a hard time getting our husbands to read the same books we read
We both think that timing and chance and just "rightness" play and should play a big part in what book we choose to read at a certain time
We both think it's OK to ditch a bad book before it's over
We both sometimes have issues with not wanting to read a super-hyped book that "everyone else" is reading
Different:
We have almost NO similar taste in books--I have no interest at all in most of what she actually read. IN fact, I'd run from it.
She did not particularly read a lot as a child
She does not like to read aloud to HER child (this one totally boggled me--if there's anything better than reading to myself it's reading to one of my children!)
She thinks anyone who hasn't been seriously tempted to commit adultery is lying
She's very New York and I'm very Midwest
Interesting book, good to "meet" another reader, but gleaned almost nothing for my own to-read list
debnanceatreaderbuzz's review
4.0
I was apprehensive about finally reading this book, to tell you the truth....I'd saved
it for several months and kept picking it up and admiring its cutesy title, its cartoonish cover, and its clever book concept
(try to read a book a week for a year and then write about the experience)....Could the book possibly live up to the
expectations I'd generated for it?
Surprisingly, yes. This book feels like it was custom cut for us, the book-obsessed in the world, with chapters on the
appeal of first lines in novels, husbands who don't read, double-booking....You almost wonder---Is Nelson here,
secretly, among us in our online book groups, silently listening to and writing down our book passions, our book concerns?
She is definitely one of us, in spirit. I heartily recommend this book.
it for several months and kept picking it up and admiring its cutesy title, its cartoonish cover, and its clever book concept
(try to read a book a week for a year and then write about the experience)....Could the book possibly live up to the
expectations I'd generated for it?
Surprisingly, yes. This book feels like it was custom cut for us, the book-obsessed in the world, with chapters on the
appeal of first lines in novels, husbands who don't read, double-booking....You almost wonder---Is Nelson here,
secretly, among us in our online book groups, silently listening to and writing down our book passions, our book concerns?
She is definitely one of us, in spirit. I heartily recommend this book.
xterminal's review
4.0
Sara Nelson, So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading (Putnam, 2003)
I had this book on my goal list for three years before getting to it. Then I finally started reading it on January 31... and did not finish it until March 20. To say that I understand the book's title (and recognize the irony in my own approach to it) would be, perhaps, understating the case.
I'm not one for memoirs, but it was impossible for me not to pick up a memoir about a woman whose goal is to read one book a week for an entire year and keep a journal about it. I mean, that's just perfect fodder for a bibliophile, right? And it helps that Nelson's narrative voice is keen and witty. This book is a collection of conversations I'd hope to have with someone I was tandem-reading books with; there's a lot about the books, of course, but Nelson also ties the books into her life (usually during musings on why a particular book jumped out at her at the particular time she read it), current and historical events, and all sorts of other ephemera. Well, ephemera to the book lover, anyway; who needs life when you have a bushel of cherry shelves crammed with books whose spines are calling out to you every minute of the day? Oh, yeah, I grok where Sara Nelson is coming from, I surely do.
I will warn voracious readers that, like Nancy Pearl's Book Lust, So Many Books, So Little Time is the kind of book that will add any number of titles to your to-be-read stack. Even books that don't sound interesting in the least are written up by Nelson so well that I felt the need to add them to the list, just because she makes them sound so enchantingly bad. So while ultimately this book might lead you to a much thinner wallet, I wholeheartedly recommend it. ****
I had this book on my goal list for three years before getting to it. Then I finally started reading it on January 31... and did not finish it until March 20. To say that I understand the book's title (and recognize the irony in my own approach to it) would be, perhaps, understating the case.
I'm not one for memoirs, but it was impossible for me not to pick up a memoir about a woman whose goal is to read one book a week for an entire year and keep a journal about it. I mean, that's just perfect fodder for a bibliophile, right? And it helps that Nelson's narrative voice is keen and witty. This book is a collection of conversations I'd hope to have with someone I was tandem-reading books with; there's a lot about the books, of course, but Nelson also ties the books into her life (usually during musings on why a particular book jumped out at her at the particular time she read it), current and historical events, and all sorts of other ephemera. Well, ephemera to the book lover, anyway; who needs life when you have a bushel of cherry shelves crammed with books whose spines are calling out to you every minute of the day? Oh, yeah, I grok where Sara Nelson is coming from, I surely do.
I will warn voracious readers that, like Nancy Pearl's Book Lust, So Many Books, So Little Time is the kind of book that will add any number of titles to your to-be-read stack. Even books that don't sound interesting in the least are written up by Nelson so well that I felt the need to add them to the list, just because she makes them sound so enchantingly bad. So while ultimately this book might lead you to a much thinner wallet, I wholeheartedly recommend it. ****
canisfam's review
3.0
This was enjoyable, as much as a book about someone else reading books could be expected to be. Gave me some ideas of books to add to my 'to read' pile!
expendablemudge's review
4.0
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: Sometimes subtle, sometimes striking, the interplay between our lives and our books is the subject of this unique memoir by well-known publishing correspondent and self-described "readaholic" Sara Nelson. From Solzhenitsyn to Laura Zigman, Catherine M. to Captain Underpants, the result is a personal chronicle of insight, wit, and enough infectious enthusiasm to make a passionate reader out of anybody.
My Review: “Allowing yourself to stop reading a book - at page 25, 50, or even, less frequently, a few chapters from the end - is a rite of passage in a reader's life, the literary equivalent of a bar mitzvah or a communion, the moment at which you look at yourself and announce: Today I am an adult. I can make my own decisions.
Really, I could stop right there and have given you a full review of this tasty li'l morsel of a book about reading, loving, choosing, and enjoying the books that mark your life.
“You know you're in a bad patch when the most interesting part of the book you're reading is the acknowledgments page.”
No, no, this would be a fine place to end one's quest for a summing-up of this aperçu-heavy literary profiterole. A pyramid of crispy pastry filled with rich, scrumptious vanilla ice cream and loaded with fudge topping.
"Reading's ability to beam you up to a different world is a good part of the reason why people like me do it in the first place---because dollar for dollar, hour per hour, it's the most expedient way to get from our proscribed little 'here' to an imagined, intriguing 'there'. Part time machine, part Concorde, part ejector seat, books are our salvation."
Heavens, what was I thinking to have left this crystalline distillation of the infinity-edged pool of publishing's unending and occasionally successful manufacture of lovely writing, pretty jackets, and escapist/timeless/delectable work.
...and so you see my dilemma...stop where? stop there why? explain or not?
Just go read the damned book already.
The Publisher Says: Sometimes subtle, sometimes striking, the interplay between our lives and our books is the subject of this unique memoir by well-known publishing correspondent and self-described "readaholic" Sara Nelson. From Solzhenitsyn to Laura Zigman, Catherine M. to Captain Underpants, the result is a personal chronicle of insight, wit, and enough infectious enthusiasm to make a passionate reader out of anybody.
My Review: “Allowing yourself to stop reading a book - at page 25, 50, or even, less frequently, a few chapters from the end - is a rite of passage in a reader's life, the literary equivalent of a bar mitzvah or a communion, the moment at which you look at yourself and announce: Today I am an adult. I can make my own decisions.
Really, I could stop right there and have given you a full review of this tasty li'l morsel of a book about reading, loving, choosing, and enjoying the books that mark your life.
“You know you're in a bad patch when the most interesting part of the book you're reading is the acknowledgments page.”
No, no, this would be a fine place to end one's quest for a summing-up of this aperçu-heavy literary profiterole. A pyramid of crispy pastry filled with rich, scrumptious vanilla ice cream and loaded with fudge topping.
"Reading's ability to beam you up to a different world is a good part of the reason why people like me do it in the first place---because dollar for dollar, hour per hour, it's the most expedient way to get from our proscribed little 'here' to an imagined, intriguing 'there'. Part time machine, part Concorde, part ejector seat, books are our salvation."
Heavens, what was I thinking to have left this crystalline distillation of the infinity-edged pool of publishing's unending and occasionally successful manufacture of lovely writing, pretty jackets, and escapist/timeless/delectable work.
...and so you see my dilemma...stop where? stop there why? explain or not?
Just go read the damned book already.
sarah42783's review
3.0
Once I started reading this book I just couldn't put it down and finished it in litlle more than a day:) I loved out it made me reflect on my own "bookaholism" and on how reading habits depend on times and circumstances. I wrote down so many quotes from the book I almost started a book of my own, but here are some of my favorite ones:
"Part time machine, part Concorde, part ejector seat, books are our salvation."
"I don't always choose the books. Sometimes the books choose me."
"It's always dangerous to reread the pivotal books of your youth."
"Now [...] I have given up my membership in the book equivalent of the Clean Plate Club. If I don't like it, I stop reading."
"We're a funny, cliquish group, we group people, and sometimes we resist liking -or even, resist opening- the very thing everybody tells us we're supposed to like."
"Emma Bovary is like Bill Clinton in a nineteenth-century French dress."
And the one quote that sums it all up:
"You'd think that after a year of [...] trying to control my reading life, I'd figured out that it is uncontrollable." Boy do I know how that feels:)
"Part time machine, part Concorde, part ejector seat, books are our salvation."
"I don't always choose the books. Sometimes the books choose me."
"It's always dangerous to reread the pivotal books of your youth."
"Now [...] I have given up my membership in the book equivalent of the Clean Plate Club. If I don't like it, I stop reading."
"We're a funny, cliquish group, we group people, and sometimes we resist liking -or even, resist opening- the very thing everybody tells us we're supposed to like."
"Emma Bovary is like Bill Clinton in a nineteenth-century French dress."
And the one quote that sums it all up:
"You'd think that after a year of [...] trying to control my reading life, I'd figured out that it is uncontrollable." Boy do I know how that feels:)