Sara Nelson - So Many Books, So Little Time

Table of Contents

Written for book junkies like me. It is a feast and a road map to great literature and its polar opposite. Sara Nelson reads well, thinks sharply, and delivers the goods.Pat Conroy

This book is bliss... Whatever your subject, you have to treat it with fearlessness, attitude and energy, writes Nelson, and she goes at books with this same unbeatable combination.The Boston Globe

Any readers ticket to bliss. What a joy this chronicle is! Sara Nelson is a splendid writersmart, witty, tough-minded, and kindhearted. Book lovers everywhere are sure to add So Many Books, So Little Time to their list of favorites.Susan Isaacs

Part memoir, part bibliophiles exploration of great novels, overhyped classics, and the occasional brilliant piece of good luck. Nelson lovingly blends her life and literature, and makes me want to crawl through the dust jacket and curl up with a list of my own.Linda Fairstein

A smart and delightful celebration of one of civilized lifes essential pleasures. What sort of person picks up a book in a bookstore and checks out the little promotional blurbs... ? A person like you, obviouslysomeone who enjoys looking at books, enjoys thinking about books, enjoys reading. If you also happen to respond well to laugh-out-loud wit, passionate opinions, deeply charming candor and unpretentious wisdom, then Sara Nelson is your perfect companion.Kurt Andersen

For those who devour books, a porterhouse, perfectly rare. Or, if you prefer, an enormous bowl of paper-thin handmade potato chips. A smart, witty, utterly original memoir about how every book becomes a part of us.

Augusten Burroughs, author of Running with Scissors and Dry

A marvelous record of how books choose us more than we choose them and how they then proceed to have a wonderful impact on our lives... a work that will make readers run to the shelf to discover which book beckons next. Recommended.Library Journal

Nelson is highlighting a central aspect of reading often ignored by critics. We all look for ourselves in books. And just as we always see faces in clouds, we can find ourselves in almost any work.

Scripps Howard News Service

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Copyright 2003 by Sara Nelson.

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ISBN : 978-1-4406-2778-1

1. Books and readingUnited States.
2. Nelson, SaraBooks and reading. I. Title.
Z1003.2.N
028.90973dc21

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To Charles Nelson,
19171990, who didnt know
what he was getting himself into when
he taught me to read all those years ago
and
To Charley Yoshimura,
who lives with the result, every day

Acknowledgments

Like Groucho Marx, who knew he couldnt do any horsewhipping if he didnt have a horse, I am first and most grateful to all the authors and publishers out there whove produced the books without which this book could never have been written. Even when I dont like something Ive read, Im glad that I read itmost of the time, anywayand I owe you all for that.

On the other hand, Groucho also said, more famously, that he wouldnt belong to any club that would have him as a member. With this, I profoundly disagree; I consider myself very lucky to have lived and worked with a lot of different people, in a lot of different clubs, and to have been accepted by a lot of them a lot of the time. There are many I cant thank by name, because I dont know their names, but Ive recorded their offhand, funny, and often inspiring comments about books and a whole lot of other stuff.

But here is a partial list of the ones I do know, the ones who are welcome at my club, anytime: my agent, Mark Reiter, who saw the possibilities in a book about reading almost before I did, and my editor, Neil Nyren, who generously jumped at the chance to publish it; and my friends and colleagues Nan Jones, Jake Morrissey, Alexia Brue, Annik LaFarge, Adrian Zackheim, David Hirshey, Gil Schwartz, Jessie Woeltz, Judy Coyne, Judy Stone, Kathy Rich, Mary Duenwald, Elisabeth Egan, Lindsey Turner, Leigh Haber, Trena Keating, Marjorie Braman, John Martini, Laura Mathews, Andy Russem, Bill Goldstein, Lynn Goldberg, Louisa Ermelino, Stephen Kuff Nelson, Jonathan Nelson, Joanne Kaufman, Sarah Crichton, Rachel Clarke, Lorraine Shanley, Constance Sayre, Robert Sabbag, Ira Silverberg, Hazel Shillingford, Lizz Winstead, Ruth Liebmann, Robin Wolaner, Lindy Hess, Miwa Messer, Jake Brown, Ellen Ryder, Maura Fritz, Dennis Wurst, Leah Rosch, John Kaye; everybody from Inside.com, particularly David Carr, Stephen Battaglio, PJ Mark, and Kurt Andersen; everybody at Glamour, particularly Cindi Leive, Alison Brower, Kristin Van Ogtrop, Jill Herzig, Erin Zammett, and Allison Mezzafonte; everybody at The New York Observer, particularly Maria Russo and Peter Kaplan; and of course, the St. Lukes Moms, particularly Maria Turgeon, Lauren Turner, Kara Young, Sabrina Turin, Paulette Bogan, Jane Stewart, and Susan Holmes.

I especially want to thank the following, without whose daily support, advice, and faith Id still be on page 1:

James Ireland Baker, not only a find of a friend but a reader and writer extraordinaire.

Liza Nelson, for a sisterhood that rarely exists outside of books.

June Nelson, for an amazing example.

And Leo Akira Yoshimura, the only person I know who can describe me as relentless and mean it as a compliment.

Prologue

Call me Insomniac.

Its three A.M. and as usual, Im awake, wandering around my New York apartment. I stumble toward the space my husband and son call the family room but I privately think of as my library. From floor to ceiling on three walls, its beautifully lined with cherry shelves. My husband, Leoa production designer for Saturday Night Live,