Rating: 
Summary: What's with Rochester?
Review: Is there someting in the water in Rochester, New York?there are a bunch of reviews from there that absolutely hate this book. Maybe it's because I live in Buffalo. . .but I loved it! I laughed out loud when Nelson talked about choosing her friends based on what they read. She clearly was kidding -- or sort of, anyway. Anyway, she's right: we do choose friends and romantic partners based on a lot of superficial characteristics, at least at the outset. I'd rather talk to somebody who judged somebody by the book they were carrying than by the clothes they were wearing or the car they were driving. But that's not even the point. This hilarious, touching book is only partially about books. It's about reading, and about living. I haven't been to New York City in ten years, but I find Nelson's story of life there interesting. I guess down in Rochester, they're just plain jealous. Lighten up, you guys.
Rating: 
Summary: Sorry Story
Review: Someone should tell Sara Nelson that it's quality not quantity that counts. In Nelson's book, So Many Books, So Little Time, she documents her yearlong resolution to read a book a week. At the end of the book, she promptly informs us that she read "a lot more than fifty-two books, even if I can't name absolutely everything I clipped into or skimmed through."
It appears as if Nelson uses her book almost as a way to politic with people about the life and times of a New Yorker. She tells us the names of the books she's read, and a little snippet about them, and she's right onto her next book or snapshot of her personal life quicker than a comet could fly past you. She will read a book so that she can comment on it at her next social outing instead of reading a book that might actually have an affect on her, or might make her reflect on her life at all. She will drop the name of a book like Geraldine's Nine Parts of Desire, but probably could not quote any real data or statistics about what really goes on in Middle Eastern countries or cultures. Instead she drops the names of books she's read like one would brag that they've meet some important person. As if the rest of the world judges one another by the books they carry or have read.
But, oh, wait- Sara does. She goes on for over three pages about how "Nine Parts has better show-off potential," and that she carries it with her to appear serious and intellectual. How superficial is that? As if a normal person would really consider marriage or even a romantic relationship with someone based on a book they spotted someone carrying.
On a somewhat positive note, Sara's book sold many copies, so she must be connecting with readers somewhere. I just wonder what that says about those who identify with Sara when she mentions things like judging a friendship based on the type of book one might suggest you read.
Rating:
Summary: My new best friend
Review: I've never met her, but Sara Nelson is my new best friend. She thinks about books the way I do -- lovingly, obsessively, with humor. Early on in this delightful memoir, she admits to choosing her books the way she choses her friends "because somebody nice introduced us, because I like their looks." It's SO TRUE: Books are like friends, and finding a new one is an exciting rare event for adults. I didn't always agree with Nelson's choices of books, but that didn't matter. This is a book about books, but it's mostly a book about love. How we need it, how we want it, how we get it. I am giving this gem to everybody I know.
Rating: 
Summary: Readable
Review: Sara Nelson accomplished alot in the 52 weeks she spent reading and writing. While she presents many interesting insights into the act of reading itself, American life, and the publishing industry, many of which are almost Seinfeld-esque, the personal progress she claims to make during her reading year seems more like a descent into psychosis. Her unwavering reliance on books as symbols for her own problems, and her constant willingness to evaluate and make decisions in her life based on the books she reads signals her readers that she perhaps is heading towards a complete mental breakdown. This would have made an enthralling and satisfying concluding chapter: Nelson discovers from a book (naturally) that she is addicted to books and that only she can make the decision to get help. Despite the aggravation I felt from her neurosis, I still found her book accessible, and a semi-pleasurable read. Perhaps what makes this book so inherently annoying is what also makes it admirable. The style of the writing (she is a Glamour magazine columnist), the frame of her environment(the New York publishing scene), and her honest attempts at honesty (she is more honest to the reader than she is to herself), all open her up to critical judgement. In addition to this, the juxtaposition of passages in which she critically assesses the books she read with passages of personal exploration, is a formula that opens her up to the harsh judgements from her readers. For this she should commended, and I do have to admit: I liked her book more than I wanted to. Perhaps the final chapter should have been her reaction to the reading of her own book (sort of the ultimate self-help guide). Nevertheless, Nelson's book can be used as a reference tool for finding our own "next read". Even if our tastes in books are very different, I can still use her text as a guide; I'll just read all the books she rips apart.
Thanks Sara Nelson, and good luck!
Rating:
Summary: inspiring
Review: I've already ready several of the books Sara Nelson recommends in this engaging, engrossing volume. After reading of her year of reading passionately, it made me determined to devote enough time to my favorite pursuit this year. Sara's voice is honest, funny, and original. Can't wait for her next one.
Rating:
Summary: Loved it, neuroses and all
Review: I'm so surprised that anybody who has read this book wouldn't give it five, or at least four, stars. it's funny and it's honest and it's so brave. Wow. I can't believe Nelson has the guts to say the things she does, about books and about her life. It's very personal, but that's what makes it interesting. It kind of reminded me of Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird: she's nutty (nuttier than Nelson, I'd guess) and by admitting to her own foibles, she makes the rest of us feel better about ours. The thing I find weirdest is the people who don't think she has a sense of humor. I laughed out loud a lot. Oh, and one more thing: This book isn't a novel, and it never says it's a novel. So I don't get the reviews that keep calling it a novel. A novel is fiction, people. This is nonfiction. Memoir. The book list is the bonus.
Rating:
Summary: Dissapointed
Review: Eternal change is not what I expect in a novel, and it would fall under the category of "rare" when a book can change the way a person views the world. But as avid a reader as Nelson is, and how passionate she claims to be, the reader expects her to tell what books really moved her, inspired her, and jolted her-for more than a minute. Mostly, Nelson's offerings of books recoil to a description boiling down to either it-was-good or it-was-bad and why (briefly), or a thrashing of the author and how this book ranks with his or her other books, or a tangent about how she acquired the book,or a confession of how long it has been sitting in her piles, or a declaration of the person who she is no longer going to be friends with because she recommended the book. Yes, she reconsiders her relationships with people who offer her a book she dislikes. Yikes.
Nelson's style is simple: she writes like she talks. She is really a character in this story, as you'll find out, and she doesn't hold back with her thoughts. But her thoughts are very open to interpretation. For example, Nelson tells us of her indifference towards people caring if she is well-read or not. If this is the truth, she does a horrible job illustrating it. Reading this book with a room full of English majors, finding only one of whom read up to four of the books Nelson mentioned, it is hard to believe she actually expects the reader to understand half of her allusions, and expect that she is not merely name-dropping. To calm the nerves of people like me, she will point out what she is doing jokingly, like when she admits to name dropping, which is supposed to make us believe she is genuine and charming. All that it made me say to myself is "I know you are name dropping, and just because you admit it doesn't mean you still don't do it all the time." I don't deny Nelson's intelligence, nor do I deny her ability as her writer. I just didn't find her constant attempts at wit and honesty to work for me (most of the times she has things in parenthesis, that's old Sarah being witty). Above all of this is my biggest problem with Nelson's story: Why am I supposed to care? Readers as avid as Nelson will devour this book and lick up the leftover gravy, fold up the paper plate it came in, and pour the remaining crumbs down their ravenous throats. The rest of us will cruise through the book-it's an extremely easy read-but will finish it asking ourselves why she took the effort to write it, and why we made the effort to read it. It is no more than an insight to the life and times of Sarah Nelson, uh-charming and funny as she is. If anything, one might be able to take away an understanding of how reading can affect a person....a neurotic person in need of a quick fix.
Rating: 
Summary: Good...but wears thin at points
Review: Sara Nelson's book "So many Books, So Little Time" is not something that will change your life. It's not the next great American novel. It's not even something that couldn't have been done by anyone else. That being said, it's not that bad of a read; however, don't expect 52 mini-book reviews for this reads more like a diary than anything else. But that's what makes this book so interesting:that it basically is a diary. It's a diary about, yes, books, but it's also about life in general, love, and families. The voyeuristicness of our nation and our need to know what happens in everyone's private lives is probably why this book achieved success. Shows like "Survivor," "The Real World," and "Big Brother" appear to be the blueprint for this novel. The pages are our cameras and, like in the shows, sometimes what happens seems to be following some sort of script (perhaps written by the publisher). But lets, for a moment, suspend our disbelief and assume that everything we've read is true. Where does that leave us?
Reading this novel under the guise that all is true, we gain insight into the life a woman living in New York City, she's engaged in a somewhat difficult marriage, has a child and works at a magazine (name never given, but we all know it's Glamour). These facts alone would probably provide for a boring novel, but it is with the constant presence of books that makes it worth reading.
I'm feeling the need to clarify what I've said above. Yes, this novel would be incredibly boring without the presence of the plethora of books mentioned, but how exactly do the books make it better? I'll tell you, and my reasoning should be your main motivation for reading "So Many Books, So Little Time." The presence of books doesn't do anything for the novel. Nothing. They don't help improve the plot. They don't make any of the characters appear to be any more real. The presence of books and the constant title-dropping makes the book worthwhile to us, the readers, because once we put down Nelson's novel, we have the opportunity to have a list of other novels that could be pages long. Nelson gets brownie points for at least giving a sentence long summary to most all of the books that she mentions and sometimes that's all that is need to intrigue the reader enough to actually make him or her go out and read that title.
All readers, no matter how young, old, tall, short, ugly, pretty, male, or female, should take advantage of this book because it recommends books far better than any normal run-of-the-mill review can. This book goes above and beyond the normal review because the books aren't recommended by some pompous New York Times reviewer; they're recommended by a normal (used loosely) person. Sure Nelson went to Yale, and she works at Glamour, but in reading her book we gain insight into her life and see that it isn't much different from yours or mine. The books that Nelson picked aren't books that need a Yale degree in order to be finished, they're just books that need a general love a reading to be finished. Lastly, the reader must be warned that while this is a good book, Nelson, at times, wears very thin and sometimes downright pisses off the reader. She's a constant name-dropper, with little need for it. She's irrational when it comes to books recommended to her by friends. She also appears to feel that it's impossible to not want to read a book in which one could relate to. And, yes, they did move the museum.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: This book is a delight! Sara Nelson is a true lover of books, and that devotion animates the pages of this witty, entertaining journal. Nelson set out with a simple plan--to read one book a week for a year and then record her reactions. Like many of our best-laid plans, this one didn't work out as she had intended, but the randomness that sometimes took over her selection process makes the book all the more human, fun...and a great journey of discovery. We learn Nelson's reactions to books that she's reading for the first time and old favorites she's chosen to revisit. She's not shy about expressing her feelings about each book vividly, whether it was a can't-put-down page turner or a selection she never could connect with. Even though her primary interest seems to be fiction, while the majority of my reading is non-fiction, I knew as I sailed through these pages that I had encountered another true bibliophile. Only people like us worry about what it means when someone urges a book upon us and we hate it. Only a true book lover will obsess over a book loaned but never given back to seek its return--even decades later. Only a true book lover wonders what her or his reading habits are saying about themselves to others. In her prologue, Nelson tells us she's trying to record on paper something she's been doing for years in her mind: "matching up the reading experience with the personal one and watching where they intersect--or don't." She succeeds admirably in this goal. Maybe those who don't have the book habit will never truly understand those of us who do...but if you have a spouse, parent, child, friend or other acquaintance who wonders why you spend so much time reading, you might tell them the answers are to be found between these pages.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing read...
Review: In So Many Books, So Little Time, Nelson offers the reader an inside look at her world of insomnia and manic book reading. "I'm ravenous for books and awake half of most nights..." This combination allows her to tackle the daunting, yet revealing task of reading a book a week for one year. While offering a venerable "who's who" in the world of literature, the reader is more inclined to note the shallow actions and elementary prose of a surprisingly experienced writer.
Nelson's superficial attitude is seen throughout her book. "People notice what you read and judge you by it." Therefore, she chooses to carry Geraldine Brook's Nine Parts of Desire, (Brook's "...interaction with Islamic women in the mid-1990's") with her in public. "...Nine Parts of Desire speaks to anyone who might be listening: I'm smart, it says. I'm concerned with current events, it announces. I am a serious person." To follow in the track of judging others, Nelson's confesses how a poor novel suggestion from a friend "...could threaten the fragile bond that has been put in place between two imperfect but well-meaning souls." Further explaining herself, Nelson states, "I should let it go, or reconsider my feelings about the book in question. But I end up reconsidering the friendship instead." Unfortunately, due to these unsettling insights the writer's genuine feelings discussed throughout her book become hard to believe.
While readers endure shallow confessions, they are rewarded by the book's simple composition. This thankfully allows for rapid page-turning and a quick read. To avoid Nelson's year-long experience entirely, merely flip to the back of the book and browse her lists of "What I Planned to Read...," "What I Actually Did Read..." and "The Must-Read Pile." These offer a summary of the books peaking Nelson's interests and her thoughts on each. It's a relatively painless solution to plowing through So Many Books, So Little Time.
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