Go Read a Book!

As a the owner of a bookstore, I read - a lot. The surface of my bedside table is obscured by a teetering mountain of books and more are stacked throughout every room of my house. They overflow from cartons in front of already full bookshelves, are tucked into the seatback pockets of my car, and stashed in purses and totebags everywhere. I had a dinner party the other night and wouldn't let my guests leave unless they took a book with them.

That said, I don't read as much as I'd like. In a good week, when life is nicely balanced and the choices are compelling, I may finish two books. Other weeks, I find myself bogged down with one and starting multiple others, a habit that smacks of literary promiscuity, even if it is a necessary evil of the job. But now lurking in my brain as a symbol of virtuosity, if not plain luxury, is a woman by the name of Nina Sankovitch.

Sankovitch, a former environmental lawyer from Westport, CT, began a quest last October to read one book a day for an entire year. A 30-second snippet of an radio interview containing that nugget was enough to make me go digging for more online, something I rarely do. What I learned about her, mainly from a New York Times piece to which my Twitter tweeps promptly referred me, such as the fact that she, in part, turned to reading in order to channel her grief over her oldest sister's death, got me thinking. Why do I read? Are my two books a week enough? And most importantly, how much do other people read?

According to a 2007 AP/Ipsos poll, one quarter of all Americans didn't finish a single book in 2006 and the median yearly consumption was just 4! Excluding the 25% of non-readers bumps the median total to 7, a figure that still doesn't begin to touch the Australian tally of 52 (you know how much they like a party!). So, right there, I have reason to feel pretty good about my hundred-books-a-year habit! As someone who is expected, it seems some days, to have read every book in my shop, it is, I'm afraid, not nearly enough. But Sankovitch admits to having given up, "the garden, The New Yorker, wasting time online, ambitious cooking, clothes shopping, [and] coffee with friends," to achieve her goal; I'm not that virtuous.

Answering why I read is easy, and is what I share most closely with Nina Sankovitch, who posted in her blog on September 20, 2009, "It is that hook -- this is a good book! -- that is the addiction to reading... the deep, deep satisfaction of knowing that I am in for a good read, full of solid atmosphere and interesting thoughts and beguiling characters and challenges." I simply love to immerse myself in a world which is not my own; whether it is a novelist's creation, a memoirist's reflections on his or her own life, or an essayist's eloquent musings, the act of reading, of imagining people, places and emotions, neither me nor mine, transports me. Fifteen minutes with a book distracts my mind from worry, satisfies my inner voyeur, stimulates my emotions as well as my intellect, and entertains me. I agree with Nina Sankovitch that, "Books are a reason to live, a cause worth getting up for in the morning and all the reason I need to climb into bed at night, books on the table beside me, waiting to be read."

So, for goodness sake, turn off the TV, exit your browser, and pick up a book. If you need a recommendation, I suggest you start with Nina Sankovitch's amazing blog.