Catalyzed by the loss of her sister, a mother of four spends one year savoring a great book every day, from Thomas Pynchon to Nora Ephron and beyond. In the tradition of Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project and Joan Dideon’s A Year of Magical Thinking, Nina Sankovitch’s soul-baring and literary-minded memoir is a chronicle of loss, hope, and redemption. Nina ultimately turns to reading as therapy and through her journey illuminates the power of books to help us reclaim our lives.
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This book has been on my TBR wishlist since its release a few years ago and I've finally gotten around to reading it! Not gonna lie, it was mostly that purple chair on the cover that sucked me in -- I want one!! -- but also because I'm all for books about books, reading, book culture, booknerds, etc.
This is the author's memoir about her project to read one book a day for an entire year. Sankovitch explains how after tragically losing her sister to cancer, she went for some time doing anything and everything to keep herself busy, not wanting to face those emotions of grief, loss and the like. Eventually though she comes to a point where she admits she can't live like that anymore or she's bound to break, physically and emotionally. Remembering how her sister and she shared a love of books, Sankovitch decides to embark on this project to read one book a day for an entire year, but with a few rules she gives herself:
1) No reading any writer more than once for the course of the year.
2) Pick all new titles -- No re-reading books you've already read previously
3) Must review everything you read
While she's not exclusive about it, Sankovitch does also incorporate titles that her sister especially liked -- as a sort of way to honor her life and memory. She also decides to go for books under 300 pages, explaining that while she is able to knock out a 300 pg book in about 4 hours, she is also a working mom, so she has to work the project schedule (reading, reviewing, trips to the library, etc) around her kids' school schedules, dinner and laundry, as well as personal time with her husband. Amazing how fast hours of the day can slip away from you!
This memoir ended up reminding me of another bookish memoir I read recently -- The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe -- where he talks about doing a reading project with his mom who was battling terminal cancer. While I did have a casual enjoyment of Sankovitch's story, I wasn't riveted. This may in part be due to some of the memoir bordering on TMI for me. I laughed at some parts (even through the ick visuals) like how she talks about trying to write up a review one day when one of her young sons is sent home from school with a surprise stomach bug. So she's trying to maintain this project schedule while cleaning out vomit buckets and bring down her child's fever. Then there's the night she's wrapped up the project work a little ahead of schedule so she tries to go "give some attention" *wink wink* to her husband, only to find him passed out on the couch, tv blaring. But the part that really had me cringing is discovering that this famous purple chair she did her reading in was not the one you see on the cover. Nope...hers, she describes, is "a muted purple with a pattern of flowers and vines." That's not what had me cringing though. No, it was the detailed description of how one of her cats would repeatedly tinkle on this chair to the point of it being so offensive in stench, no one could be near it for more than a few minutes. This was to be her throne of literary escapism. Blech!
It wasn't just that. Largely, I just didn't find it that gripping. There were parts I liked, parts that made me sad (her sister's final days, her father's Holocaust experiences), and I left with some nice additions to my TBR. I'm content. Glad I read it, just not favorited.