Recently posted by Becky Dayton

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. 

When I got pregnant with my first child 15 years ago, I took full advantage of financial security, jettisoning my career hopes to embrace motherhood and domesticity. I filled my days chasing toddlers, attending playgroups, creating elaborate meals, furnishing and decorating my home, volunteering and training for marathons. But after ten years, a subsequent child, four marathons and a move into a new home, I began to feel, well, bored. My daily pattern of school drop-off, workout, grocery store, lunch, reading and - gasp - a nap before school pick up that, while, comfortable and leisurely, didn't offer much in the way of intellectual fulfillment.

I had begun to devour books, the re-ignition of a lifetime love of reading, and fantasized about having a really great bookstore in town. I wasn't a fan of the grubby old book shoppe that  sat at the center of our village, but felt guilty about my frequent Amazon deliveries, believing that I really ought to be supporting my local business. And so, on one very slow day at home, I thought - hubris alert! - I can buy that bookstore and maker it better! Four years later, I'm the proud, occasionally exhausted, sometimes chastened owner of the new old book shoppe at the center of our village. I'm a few hundred grand in debt, but I'm not bored anymore.

For a time I outsourced or neglected as much non-work responsibility as possible; I engaged a nanny for my children, I quit running, and my house turned into one big pile of unfolded laundry. While it was exciting to throw myself into something entirely new and challenging (having never even worked in a bookstore before, I had everything to learn - and fast, because I was the boss), my old boredom had morphed into a giant ball of stress and frustration at not having the freedom to have fun anymore. So as my renovations have "cured," my staffing changes have settled, and the barrage of change has receded into normality, I have begun to reclaim my leisure, my family, and my home.

This summer my kids didn't go to 4 weeks of sleep-away camp. I rode my bike almost every day. I took a ten-day vacation. Now, granted, there were days when my 14 year old son did his couch potato thing while I biked 50 miles alone that I felt like I wasn't doing anybody any justice. And when the holidays come around and I spend all day, every day at the store and the kids put up the Christmas tree themselves, I'll feel terrible. As a whole, though, my fifth year of ownership is going to be different.

I intend to work intently when I'm at work, and play, rest or parent intently when I'm not. Guilt-free. I've planned a regular day off. We don't have a nanny this year, so school pick up, activity delivery, and homework supervision is on me (or Dad). And we'll eat dinner together as frequently as possible. I'll still feel responsible when on a given Saturday (today) my staff is stretched to their limit because I'm not there to make it easy for them, but something tells me my 10 year-old daughter's memory is longer.

Working and caring for our families and ourselves in today's world demands a crazy balance that's unique to each of us. I know that, as my own boss, I actually have lots more flexibility than many working moms, and my good fortune, financially speaking, is not lost on me. But in terms of my own experience as a working woman, I like the playground analogy: the teeter totters wildly some days, but I think I'm finally learning the trick to staying on.

 

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