So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading by Sara NelsonMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
I found this book on Goodreads, my public library had it, so I borrowed it. I read some of the reviews and although many were negative, I decided I would give it a shot, as my opinion of a book doesn't always agree with reviews I have read. With this book, I probably should have listened to the reviews.
Things I liked and could relate to about this book:
How her husband doesn't read books. My husband is the same way. He looks forward to reading the newspaper every day and sometimes magazines, but in the 18 years that I've known him, he's maybe read two books from front to back.
I agree with her in that choosing a particular book at a certain time in your life is how I usually choose what I will read next.
I agree with her in that I don't like to jump on the bandwagon with reading a book that is suddenly in the limelight and "everyone else" is reading it NOW. (Think '50 Shades Of Gray', which I still haven't read.) I like to read what I want to read, not what society is telling me is popular now.
I like the 'idea' of reading 1 book a week for a year. I know I would not be able to do this. How she can take time out to read, lose sleep and still hold down a full time job and raise her eight year old son? She's got some extraordinary energy to do all she does. I do not have that kind of energy and would never try to read an 800+ page book in a week. Not to mention, where is the time spent with family and her husband? Were these things she sacrificed in order to write this book?
Things I disliked and could not relate to:
Double-booking. I've never done this mainly because I like to concentrate on one book at a time and feel that if I concentrate on only one book I will finish with it sooner and be able to move onto another book sooner.
Most of the books she read and/or wrote about I'd never heard of and really have no desire to read. There was a sentence on page 66 of the book that really spoke to me about what she thinks of the kinds of books I like (chick lit.) Here it is:
"How could somebody I like have liked that book? Needless to say, their friendship sputtered out faster than the plot of a Luanne Rice novel." When I read that I literally gasped out loud, my eyes grew wide and I felt like saying "How dare she bash an author I enjoy!" This one sentence in the book set the tone for the rest of the book for me.
I did want to finish reading the book to see what else she had to say, but I knew after that sentence that she probably wouldn't be writing anything positive about authors that I enjoy.
Another reviewer of this book said "And her constantly reminding me that she was in an interracial marriage, or that her husband worked for SNL, was getting rather tedious. Make your point, and then move on, please." I totally agree with this statement. She also touted how her mother and sister held jobs in the literary world.
She thinks it's OK to ditch a bad book before it's over. I've always had a difficult time doing this. I almost did decide to stop reading her book after the stab she gave to Luanne Rice books, but I decided to hear her out.
She's not a fan of non-fiction and I was also surprised that she didn't read any biographies in her 52 weeks of reading. None that I remember her mentioning anyway.
It was interesting to read about someone else's reading habits. I just didn't relate to her as I thought I would and that disappointed me.
View all my reviews
About the Author
