Books about Books – a pairing

Sometimes I have reading slumps – although frequently it’s actually impossible to externally identify when I am in a slump, because I am such a reader that I read whether I really want to read or not. I know I’m in a slump, though, because I find myself unable to choose a book, or reluctant to pick up a book I am reading, or just generally experiencing bookish malaise.

One of the things that helps get me out of a reading slump is rereading. Another is books about books – I am always looking for reading memoirs.

Tolstoy and the Purple ChairTolstoy and the Purple Chair
by Nina Sankovitch
Rating: ★★★★
Publication Date: June 7, 2011
Genre: essays, memoir
Pages: 241
ReRead?: Yes

After the death of her sister, Nina Sankovitch found herself caught up in grief, dashing from one activity to the next to keep her mind occupied. But on her forty-sixth birthday she decided to stop running and start reading.

Catalyzed by the loss of her sister, a mother of four spends one year savoring a great book every day, from Thomas Pynchon to Nora Ephron and beyond. In the tradition of Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project and Joan Dideon's A Year of Magical Thinking, Nina Sankovitch's soul-baring and literary-minded memoir is a chronicle of loss,hope, and redemption. Nina ultimately turns to reading as therapy and through her journey illuminates the power of books to help us reclaim our lives.


This was the first of a couple of bookish memoirs that I picked up at the end of February/beginning of March. I like these types of memoirs, and a lot of them seem to be set around the idea of a year of reading. This one is no exception. The gimmick here is that the author read a book a day for a year. Now, I read a lot, and still the idea of actually finishing a book a day for a year is crazy to me. I have friends who accomplish this year after year, and I bow to their proficiency.

I enjoyed my time hanging out with Nina enough that this is actually the second time I’ve read this particular reading memoir.

Jacob's Room is Full of BooksJacob's Room is Full of Books
by Susan Hill
Rating: ★★★★
Publication Date: October 5, 2017
Genre: essays, memoir
Pages: 273
ReRead?: No

When we spend so much of our time immersed in books, who's to say where reading ends and living begins? The two are impossibly and gloriously wedded, as Hill shows in Jacob's Room Is Full of Books.

Considering everything from Edith Wharton's novels through to Alan Bennett's diaries, Virginia Woolf and the writings of twelfth century monk Aelred of Rievaulx, Susan Hill charts a year of her life through the books she has read, reread or returned to the shelf. From beneath a shady tree in a hot French summer, or the warmth of a kitchen during an English winter, Hill reflects on what her reading throws up, from writing and writers to politics and religion, as well as the joy of dandies or the pleasure of watching a line of geese cross a meadow.

Full of wry observations and warm humour, as well as strong opinions freely aired, this is a rare and wonderful insight into the rich world of reading from one of the nation's most accomplished authors.


This is a “sequel” to Susan Hill’s first bookish memoir, Howard’s End is on the Landing, which I read and really loved a few years ago. It also follows a reading year format, without the book-a-day gimmick. Hill talks books, but she talks about a lot of other things, too – the cycles of nature, and the joys of reading in summer and winter. In my mind, she lives in a rambling 18th century farmhouse bursting at the seams with books of all sorts, from the green Penguin mysteries of Josephine Tey to leather bound tomes hand-illustrated by monks. This is probably mostly just my head-canon, but it makes for a wonderful vision. There are reader complaints that she’s patronizing, or stuffy, or a bit of a know-it-all. But that’s not the experience I have, hanging out in her garden, in an admittedly one way conversation about books.

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