Read all day

At first it strikes you as a little nutty, the latest 365-day project. But if anyone doubts that Nina Sankovitch is serious about reading, even though she has read a book a day for the past year, they should read her thoughtful and helpful reviews.

The New York Times ran a story about her project Monday. Her Web site, www.readallday.org, has the reviews.

It is the list of authors that hooked me. Sankovitch resolved not to repeat any author (nor to read any book she had read before), so she has an impressive list of 350 authors. 350 authors! In less than a year!

All of us have adopted the mantra "So many books, so little time," but Sankovitch's project shows us how relative this is. She stopped reading the New Yorker and limited her TV viewing to a single program (NCIS). Obviously she doesn't have to work -- which of course earned her a number of resentful comments on the Times Web site. But, hey, she has a law degree from Harvard, has worked as an environmental lawyer and chooses not to work right now because she can -- lucky her.

In the Times article, her only point is that everyone should have time to read a book a week, and it's hard to argue with this. In any case, her example is revelatory and certainly inspires me to try harder to make time for reading.