Nelson, Sara: So Many Books, So Little Time

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Sara Nelson has written a book that any number of us might have produced some version of. The author set herself the task of reading a book a week in 2002 and recording her responses to what she read, "matching up the reading experience with the personal one and watching where they intersect--or don't." The result is a collection of thirty-something (not 52, as you might expect) interconnected essays that take Nelson's books of the week as their starting point.

Readers will find much to relate to in Nelson's musings on, for example, good first lines or "double-booking" (reading more than one book at a time) or the perils of reading friends' manuscripts. There is also the occasional shock on offer, as when Nelson reveals that some people skip around in the books they read or, quelle horreur, stop reading them altogether before the last page. If it is true, as I think, that people who like to read like to read about reading, then Nelson's pleasant ruminations should appeal.