A Book a Day
At the New York Times, Nina Sankovitch is profiled as she nears her goal of reading a book a day for a year. She began last year on her birthday, with The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (a book I want to read but haven’t, yet.) She posted a review the next day and kept going.
Ms. Sankovitch claims not to be a Type A maniac and does seem pretty normal. A non-reading indulgence, she says, is watching “NCIS” while folding laundry. Still, to make this work she’s cut out a lot – the garden, The New Yorker, wasting time online, ambitious cooking, clothes shopping, coffee with friends.
In addition, the family is comfortably off, and she has two older kids, 11 and 14, both readers. I’m glad the piece included the details of how she made it work. And her story has struck a chord with readers. I followed the link from The Morning News, but later saw it at Pages Turned, and other book blogs.
I like the idea of Sankovitch’s goal even if it wouldn’t fit with my life and I’m not sure I’d want to do a whole year even if it did. There are so many books I want to read that simply wouldn’t fit into a day even if I could read for the entirety of it.
But a week? A fortnight? A month? Any of those would sure go a long way toward reading what I own, rather than buying or borrowing new stuff. I’m pondering it. Maybe I start with a week, and see how it goes.
What does everyone else think?
October 13th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
I agree. I’m not the world’s fastest reader, so it would definitely have an impact on the choice of reading material for me. Plus having to give up things like The New Yorker for an extended period of time would make me really crabby after a while. But yeah, for a week or two, to make a dent in the TBR stacks? That could be fun. I’ll do it if you’ll do it!
October 13th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
I love reading, but I don’t honestly think I could read for an entire day (or even eight hours a day), because there are other things in my life that I enjoy as well. Like spending time talking to my friends and family, or walking our two dogs, or cooking and working on my writing (which generally means writing things for my blog, but still). There are lots of things about what Sankovitch is doing that I think are admirable, but part of her commitment means making sacrifices I don’t know that I’d be happy with - I wouldn’t particularly enjoy only reading books that are less than 250 - 300 pages, I don’t think, and it’s not entirely clear to my why she is not allowing herself to re-read novels or why she can only read one book per author. The length restriction I get - you aren’t going to read War & Peace in a single day - but those others, I’m not sure about.
Also, I did think it was interesting that upon completing her challenge, she may reward herself or celebrate by NOT reading (or perhaps not reading an entire book). To me, it seems somewhat beside the point to read to such an extent that it becomes a relief to no longer do it. Perhaps because I can only read a few hours a day I look forward to those chances more? Or maybe I’m just trying to make myself feel better because I am not in the financial position to simply read all day every day…
October 14th, 2009 at 9:25 am
What I noticed was her comment about giving up complicated cooking, since that’s been such a big part of my life since getting our farm share. But that ends this week, yay! And then we’re in winter, and there will be less fresh stuff overall.
What about the first fortnight of the new year? I do have a lot of short books on my TBR shelves. That would be the biggest sacrifice for me–not having the choice to read big books.
But that would give a nice kickoff to my plan to read 25 shelf books next year.
October 14th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
She’s basically reading instead of drinking herself to death in grief–I’ve done it too, and it is preferable to have that lousy coping mechanism in your arsenal rather than alcohol. It’s as if she’s not doing it for pleasure, but to shield herself from stress and emotion and work out her feelings in a safe way.
October 14th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Good point, Kerry. Funny how that detail about her sister’s death–so huge to her–seems small in the context of the profile.
October 15th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
I’ve actually done it. 2004 and 2005 I read at least 365 books. But I’m a very fast reader, and in recent years, between moving and going to college I haven’t been able to keep that up. I still average about 200-250 books a year though. (I do count re-reads because part of my personal reading philosophy is that each re-read is actually introducing you to a new book.)
October 16th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
I think the fortnight of the new year would be a perfect time to try it. Are you going to have the same rules she did, or just read a book a day? I have some books on my shelves I haven’t read in 20 or more years that I’d like to re-read. Some young adult, but as I recall, she included those in her repertory.
October 16th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
I think it should be flex-y, so read or re-read, just so it’s a book a day for the first two weeks, posting the day after. And preferably for those of us with book-buying issues, not new purchases.
October 17th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Cool. And I agree, no new purchases. It’s not like I don’t have anything to read already on the shelves!!!
October 17th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
I’ve managed book-a-day months, but I doubt I could do a whole year unless I ignored all the longer books I want to get to. I’ve managed those months solely because I chose to read shorter books with less complicated narrative styles. Most of the books I have left don’t match up with either category.
October 18th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
I think a month is about the longest I’d want to go, unless I was doing some sort of grief therapy like the woman in the article. I’ve got a lot of hulking tomes on my shelves. Even split into segments (like Neal Stephenson’s BAroque Cycle is actually 9 smaller novels) they’re still too big for a day. Or at least a day in my life.
October 19th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Yeah, anything over a couple hundred pages would tax me pretty badly, even on weekends.