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

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Sometimes subtle, sometimes striking, the interplay between our lives and our books is the subject of this unique memoir by well-known publishing correspondent and self-described "readaholic" Sara Nelson. From Solzhenitsyn to Laura Zigman, Catherine M. to Captain Underpants, the result is a personal chronicle of insight, wit, and enough infectious enthusiasm to make a passionate reader out of anybody.

My Review: "Allowing yourself to stop reading a book - at page 25, 50, or even, less frequently, a few chapters from the end - is a rite of passage in a reader's life, the literary equivalent of a bar mitzvah or a communion, the moment at which you look at yourself and announce: Today I am an adult. I can make my own decisions.

Really, I could stop right there and have given you a full review of this tasty li'l morsel of a book about reading, loving, choosing, and enjoying the books that mark your life.

"You know you're in a bad patch when the most interesting part of the book you're reading is the acknowledgments page."

No, no, this would be a fine place to end one's quest for a summing-up of this aperçu-heavy literary profiterole. A pyramid of crispy pastry filled with rich, scrumptious vanilla ice cream and loaded with fudge topping.

"Reading's ability to beam you up to a different world is a good part of the reason why people like me do it in the first place---because dollar for dollar, hour per hour, it's the most expedient way to get from our proscribed little 'here' to an imagined, intriguing 'there'. Part time machine, part Concorde, part ejector seat, books are our salvation."

Heavens, what was I thinking to have left this crystalline distillation of the infinity-edged pool of publishing's unending and occasionally successful manufacture of lovely writing, pretty jackets, and escapist/timeless/delectable work.

...and so you see my dilemma...stop where? stop there why? explain or not?

Just go read the damned book already.