Rating: 
Summary: Loved it!
Review: Anybody who loves books and has a sense of humor about thesmelves will love this book about a woman who tried to read a book a week for a year, and write about it. I wish Nelson had talked more about the writing aspect and addressed the question: when you're going to write about a book, do you read it differently? but overall I thought her points were well made and her book list very interesting. Plus: She's very funny! I'm buying this book for my friends.
Rating: 
Summary: A Year of Obsessive Self-Centeredness
Review: I've been on a "books about books" kick lately, and was glad to see a new, infrequent, addition at my small local library. Maybe Nelson's book wouldn't have been such a disappointment if I hadn't just read A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addict, by John Baxter. But even if I hadn't enjoyed Baxter's little jewel so thoroughly, I think Nelson would still have come off as shallow and self-centered. Her passion for books seems more like an addiction, her choices undiscriminating. And despite her insistence that she resists reading books merely because they're on the best seller lists, what she does read seems more guided by the opinions of others than by any considerations of quality. If your taste runs to ephemera and fluff, Nelson's recommendations will please you. Otherwise, reader beware.It also seems quite appropriate that her New York Observer article: The Amazon Epidemic: Writers Addicted to Rankings, should end this way: "The poet T.S. Eliot famously lamented that we measure out our life in coffee spoons. The 1990's pop heroine Bridget Jones chronicled hers in cigarettes, calories and pounds on the scale. It follows that we, in the early 21st century, look to words and numbers on a Web page for our sense of self. For now, at least, it's the best we've got."
Rating:
Summary: A Bookaholics Dream Book
Review: If you enjoy reading a book about reading and books, this title is just for you. I know it certainly was for me and I enjoyed it thoroughly. The author, an editor for a popular magazine, challenged herself to read a book a week and offers her readers advice on among other things what to read, when to close a book and the joys of rereading a favorite book. She also manages to weave in stories about her family, husband and child which gives the reader a better understanding as to how her reading helped her to understand the world around her. She also explains, how in some cases, reading influenced her choices in life as well. While many avid readers already are familiar with what the
author discusses and perhaps could have also written this book, Sara Nelson is the one that did it and I appreciate her not only for taking this book odyssey but writing about it for readers everywhere. I found the book was presented in a witty and amusing fashion, sometimes even poignantly when she talks about her now decased father and Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk, a real favorite of mine. In addition her suggestions are not only worthwhile but in some cases she made some books sound so wonderful I just had to add them to my to be read list. I do recommend this book and if you should read it, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. As I closed So Many Books, So Little Time, I couldn't help but think of a quote from CS Lewis, "I read to know I am not alone."
Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly narrow focus...
Review: Sara Nelson writes in a breezy, very readable manner (I really did want to like this book) and I'm sure she does a great job writing for 'Glamour' magazine. However, it was spoilt for me by her smug, shallow, way-too-pleased with herself attitude and her extraordinarily narrow focus when it came to the books. And what's so hard about reading one book a week when this is what you're being paid to do? Many of us with very different jobs and busy lives read far more than that in a week. As one previous reviewer observed, her reading tastes are confined to popular fiction, whatever is on the NYT best-seller list, and a small selection of 'must-read' modern classics. She virtually writes off all non-fiction (yeah, really!), admits that she doesn't like poetry, dismisses the murder mystery genre in one sentence (and thereby misses some wonderful, literary prose - what about P.D. James, Reginald Hill, Peter Robinson, Josephine Tey or the Lord Peter Wimsey series?) dislikes reading about history and only mentions the classics in order to point out to us what she has missed. This doesn't leave much. No truly avid reader has such humongeous gaps in his or her education. She seems to have no intellectual curiosity whatsoever. And as for ditching one's friends if they like the 'wrong' books...please! How shallow and silly is that? I would have thought that would have made for some lively discussion, not a parting of the ways. I'm not surprised that her poor husband's 'mood-meter' is generally set on grumpy. I felt pretty grumpy myself by the time I'd finished her book. It was a neat idea with lots of potential. What a wasted opportunity!
Rating: 
Summary: Too much of nothing
Review: This is not a book about books. It is a book about the author, who isn't nearly as interesting as she thinks she is. This book would be much easier to take had Sarah Nelson written it as a straight autobiography. It's not that hard a job to read a book a week, especially if you don't read anything demanding like history, biography, classics, drama, poetry. Sarah Nelson tries to make her year-long effort sound rough and admirable. This book is neither. Maybe she should join the Peace Corps.
Rating: 
Summary: A Major Accomplishment by a Very Dedicated Woman
Review: As a voracious reader, the specifics of reading --- why do people read, how do they find new books, authors and subjects, when and where do they read --- interest me as much, say, as gourmands love reading about food (okay, I like that too) or sports fans watching and talking about sports. Sara Nelson is a wife, mother, columnist and reviewer. (Phew!) In what I think is a very brave decision, she set out in 2002 to read a book a week. She chose a wide variety --- books she thought she would like, those that had been heralded as the best in the world, those she believed she ought to read, and those that had been on her shelves for a long time. Sometimes people gave her a book, other times she bought one or found a review copy at work. Nelson shares some of my biases, including a hesitation about reading "the Big Book of the Year." She's a bit leery of "classics," although her repeated insistence that she must be the only person who has never read a book seems ingenuous. But the real weakness of SO MANY BOOKS, SO LITTLE TIME is that the author lives in a rather constricted world. For example, she assumes that people who reread books are snobs wishing to "trumpet their intellectual superiority." Nonsense. We reread books because we like them --- whether it's the characters, the language or the story itself. Sometimes I read a book so quickly that I think I might have missed something, so rereading it is a must for me. Nelson goes on to complain about people who talk about books at cocktail parties; she finds herself pretending to have read them because she wants to fit in. Cocktail parties? Do they still have those? Oh, right: she lives in New York. She talks about having the right "accessory" book to bring to Fire Island and that picking her next outfit is as important as choosing a book to read. These are not universal problems. Once you learn to ignore the passages about the "literary life" in New York, there's a lot to like here. Nelson reminds us that we're not the only ones who have too many books to choose from. She's very daring about what she decides to read --- books that address difficult issues or that aren't the easy reads she usually enjoys. It's refreshing that Nelson says she did not grow up reading all the time and came to her love of books late. Very few of us would take on the task that Sara Nelson assigned herself. A book a week for a year? Granted, many of us read more than 52 books in a year, but this job requires a different commitment and enthusiasm. I believe few of us would make it all the way through. And even though my choices (and yours, I suspect) would differ from Nelson's, what she did took serious dedication to the written word. --- Reviewed by Andi Shechter
Rating:
Summary: Terrific Book, Terrific Writer!
Review: This book wears its reader like an old shoe. Warm, wonderful, and it fits you so well you almost don't know you're wearing it. Sara Nelson's prose flows into you like a gentle summer breeze. I simply couldn't put it down! And unlike those unreadable reviews in the NYTBR, Sara really tells us what she thinks about the books and authors, and why, or why not, to read them. I curled up with this book and almost read it straight through. Afterwards, I wanted to read more of her work, and found a column she wrote recently about "Naughty nannies" in the Observer. It was priceless. Here's to her next book. We're waiting, Sara...
Rating:
Summary: I adore this book...
Review: ...so much so that I can't bear to read any negative reviews of it! It was wonderful -- funny and entertaining and interesting and real. The author doesn't review books, she discusses them, gossips about them, shares why she loves (and hates them) and the role they played (and play) in her life. Any reader will relate to how she describes crawling into a book and the refuge/friendship/education they provide at different times in her life. The passionate reader will love her examination of the different aspects of books -- from what the acknowledgements page says about a book to how books get marketed. Most definitely NOT for pseudo intellectuals who want high brow book reviews -- but definitely for anyone who would describe books as their passion and reading as their favorite activity.
Rating:
Summary: Great idea!
Review: I had never seen such an idea put into book form. I loved it! I drove myself crazy looking up books Sara had read or were in her TBR pile. Now my TBR pile is even larger...sigh, So Many Books, So Little Time, indeed!
Rating:
Summary: From one book lover to another...
Review: ...I have to say that this memoir spoke to me. I identified with the author's passion for books. She doesn't just offer insight on the books she reads during the course of a year, she lets us into her library -- a book lover's proverbial sanctuary -- in a deep, personal level. At times it felt as though Ms. Nelson and I were participating in a co-read. I loved her takes on the similarities and differences between Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina. She penned my thoughts on the aforementioned classics down to a tee. I nodded with agreement that, to her, books are "secret lovers." And I, too, get heartburn when I have to loan one of my books. Of course, I also disagreed with some of Nelson's takes on certain books, but her opinions and insights, however disagreeable, were duly noted. This memoir is a rich and enlightening reading experience. I'd like to sit and discuss books with this person. From a book lover to another, I put my hat down...
| 
