If someone were to yell, "Bookworm!" as I was walking down the street, I'd turn around to see if they were talking to me. That's how much I identify with Sara Nelson's SO MANY BOOKS, SO LITTLE TIME.

Nelson not only loves books but she also makes her living at it, reviewing them for GLAMOUR MAGAZINE and THE NEW YORK OBSERVER.

Unlike most of us, Nelson's New Year's resolution (and motivation for the book) is to read a book a week for the next year. She doesn't stick to her plan very well, but her efforts are well worthwhile because of what she discovers about herself (and us?) as a reader. For instance, place is important to her. What she reads in bed will be entirely different from what she might read at the beach or on an airplane. Nelson also proves the old saw that we look for ourselves in the books we choose. For instance, she's married to a Japanese-American set designer and that makes David Mura's TURNING JAPANESE, the memoir of a second-generation Japanese man married to a Caucasion woman, all the more enticing to her. She's also a city girl and doesn't relate to rural settings at all, which is why she couldn't get through A THOUSAND ACRES, PEACE LIKE A RIVER, or PLAINSONG.

I had read a few of the books Nelson talks about, MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR (Because I liked Wouk) and SLAMMERKIN to name two, but what really struck home was her admission that she gave up on certain books occasionally, even though she'd paid twenty dollars for them, and despite the fact that she has enormous respect for someone who may have spent five years of his life sweating blood. I could relate because I almost never give up on a book, no matter how painful, but I hadn't realized this had anything to do with maturation (Nelson's justification for jettisoning some books). I immediately threw out Umberto Eco's BAUDOLINO which was driving me up the wall.

The book is structured rather like Natalie Goldberg's WRITING DOWN THE BONES. Each chapter sounds like one of Nelson's columns, although some of them bleed into the next chapter. A couple of them were especially memorable such as when Nelson's sister gives her her novel to read. What would she say if she didn't like it? Would their relationships be over? She had to read it because she'd been bugging her sister for it for years. There's another episode where she reads CHARLOTTE'S WEB with her third grade son, Charley. He doesn't want to read it at first because it's about farm animals. After about three chapters he tells her he now likes it because the farm animals are a lot like people and that Charlotte reminds him of her.
I was beginning to think that Nelson was a big old softy until she let loose on TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE. She hates overly hyped books and she felt Mitch Albom didn't really have much to say: Stop and smell the roses; don't sweat the small stuff; concentrate not on money or status but on love of family and community, something they teach in kindergarten. I felt the same way about ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE, another overly hyped book with not much to say.

What I'll take away from this book is that it's okay to disagree about a book, something some of the Amazon reviewers who give negative votes to people who dis their favorite book ought to remember. I loved PLAINSONG. I almost feel personally insulted that she couldn't finish it, but maybe I liked it so much because I was raised on a farm, because I was a teacher, or because those bachelor farmers struck a cord with me. Besides I really hate Philip Roth! So there.

Dave Schwinghammer's unconventional mystery, SOLDIER'S GAP, is available at Amazon.com, new and used.