Search - So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading

Amazing, funny book that everyone who reads should read. How can any reader not love a book about reading and books! I was going to keep it and try to tackle all the books she reads in her year of writing this, but to be honest, while I love her writing, her reading tastes bore me. There was only one she read that I have already read and loved which was "Kitchen Confidential". The only other book she mentioned that I have read, she didn't read. Which is "Confederacy of Dunces". So while I'm not keen on her tastes in reading material, her writing about them and her experiences along the way is out of this world good!

I had a hard time getting through this. I could only read one or two chapters at a time and then needed to take a break. I think the book was way overhyped...the author's goal was to journal her reading experiences for a year, but it ended up being a pretentious name-dropping fest "oh i know this author" or "oh i know the actor who was in the movie made from this book" yada yada yada. I did find a few good books to read among her choices, though.

This is such a great book! People either love it or hate it. Here's the thing: if you're looking for just a list of good books to read and nothing more, put this book down and pick up Nancy Pearl's Book Lust. If you don't mind something more, then you've found the right book. Sara Nelson decided that she was going to spend one year reading a book a week from a list that she made. Instead she learned that you can't pick your books, books pick you. So instead of reading the books that she was "suppose" to, she feel in and out of love with books that fit her mood. She shows how for alot of readers (including myself,) that you read what fits your mood. Sara Nelson shows a very honest portrayal of her reading habits, such as: loving a writer's first novel and hating the next, not reading classics, refusing to read anything on any bestseller's list or reading anything that is overhyped, being careful what you recommend to someone to read, and also learning how to put a book down if it doesn't speak to you instead of trudging through it. "So many books, so little time" is a great book and highly recommended. You'll walk around everywhere with it until you're finished.

Do not read if you are looking for a read-alike to David Denby’s Great Books or Harold Bloom’s How to Read and Why. Do read if you are a kindred spirit of Sara Nelson, self-described bookaholic, whose memoir details her plan to read a book a week and to write about that experience. These year-long challenges that turn into books seem to be a genre in themselves: think Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle – a Year of Food Life. But that’s OK, it’s fun to meet One of Us, even though my reading universe rarely intersects with Sara’s. But her often funny ruminations as to why she reads – for fun, for intellectual stimulation, for emotional intensity, as consolation for life’s disappointments – are all spot on. Read this book and then give it to a fellow book freak.

I enjoyed this book and found a lot to relate to, since I too am a book crazy wife with a non-reading hubby. I've read a lot of the books she talked about here in her reading year so that also added interest. Basically though this is a collection of essays or journal responses to the books she reads throughout the year. A fun and easy read that expanded my ever-lengthening booklist, I took notes while reading it to remember things she mentioned that I too want to check out. I actually got something recommended to me by this book from the library today!