Tolstoy and the Purple Chair

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading by Nina Sankovitch

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I love books about books, and I love books about grief. This book covers both.

Nina Sankovitch's sister was diagnosed with cancer and died four months later. In an attempt to work through her grief and terrible loss, she sets a goal to read and review a book a day for an entire year. She and her sister shared a love of books right up until the end, and she felt it would be a fitting tribute to their relationship while helping her heal.

First of all, I'm jealous. I know I shouldn't be since it took the death of her sister to help her reach this goal, but I am. I would love to have the ability to read a book a day. Fortunately the author was a stay-at-home mom during this time and had 6-8 hours of time per day to knock out her books. She has a remarkably patient husband. He sounds great and she is lucky to have him. Secondly, I found so many books to add to my TBR shelf that I may never work through them all. Conveniently the author lists all 365 books at the end so you too can load up your TBR shelf with hidden gems. But mostly I enjoyed reading how she tied the books she read into working through her grief while still being a mother of 4 and a wife of 1. Definitely a book for book lovers!



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