Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading

by Nina Sankovitch

Overview

“Nina Sankovitch has crafted a dazzling memoir that reminds us of the most primal function of literature—to heal, to nurture and to connectus to our truest selves." —Thrity Umrigar, author of The Space Between Us

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061999857
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	06/19/2012
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	247,194
Product dimensions:	5.38(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.64(d)

About the Author

Nina Sankovitch launched ReadAllDay.org in 2008, and at the end of her year of reading, she was profiled in the New York Times. She continues to review books on ReadAllDay.org and for the Huffington Post. She lives in Connecticut with her husband and four sons.

Table of Contents

Prologue: On the Cliff 1

1 Crossing the Bridge 5

2 Return to the Bookmobile 18

3 Such Beauty in the World 32

4 In Search of Books and Time 46

5 Rearranging the Rhythms 53

6 The Only Balm to Sorrow 62

7 Looking for the Star 75

8 Finding Another Chance 88

9 To Welcome the Interloper 99

10 Hearing Words I'd Missed Before 108

11 Where Warmth Is Found 119

12 The Expansion of Experience 131

13 Bound to the World 140

14 Sex by the Book 149

15 The Man in My Dreams 157

16 Offering a Better View 164

17 Fireflies Dancing Across the Lawn 177

18 The Answers That Mysteries Provide 186

19 Discovering Purpose in Kindness 193

20 Coming off Loulou's Motorcycle 204

21 Tolstoy in My Purple Chair 212

Acknowledgments 223

Complete List of Books Read from October 28, 2008, to October 28, 2009 225

Permissions 237

What People are Saying About This

Julie Klam

“Tolstoy and the Purple Chair will transport you to a time before texts and tweets. Through the stories of her own family, Nina Sankovitch shows how books have the power to refresh, renew, and even heal us. I loved this memoir.”

Thrity Umrigar

“Nina Sankovitch has crafted a dazzling memoir that reminds us of the most primal function of literature—to heal, to nurture and to connect us to our truest selves.”

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

“Tolstoy and the Purple Chair masterfully weaves beloved and sometimes surprising books into central events in the writer’s life. There is much to learn from this moving book. Sankovitch writes with intelligence and honesty, leading us to respond in a similar manner.”

S.J. Bolton

“Tolstoy and the Purple Chair is original, uplifting and very moving: a unique celebration of life, love and literature.”

Editorial Reviews

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair will transport you to a time before texts and tweets. Through the stories of her own family, Nina Sankovitch shows how books have the power to refresh, renew, and even heal us. I loved this memoir.

Julie Klam

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair is original, uplifting and very moving: a unique celebration of life, love and literature.

S. J. Bolton

[A] brilliant and heartwarming book.

Ventura County Star

Sankovitch’s memoir stands as a tribute to the power of books to enrich our daily lives.

Christian Science Monitor

In Tolstoy and the Purple Chair, her affectionate and inspiring paean to the power of books and reading, Sankovitch gracefully acknowledges that her year of reading was an escape into the healing sanctuary of books, where she learned how to move beyond recuperation to living.

BookPage

A beautifully paced look at how mindfulness can affect the psyche.

Shelf Awareness (starred review)

Anyone who has ever sought refuge in literature will identify with Tolstoy and the Purple Chair.

The Oprah Magazine O

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair masterfully weaves beloved and sometimes surprising books into central events in the writer’s life. There is much to learn from this moving book. Sankovitch writes with intelligence and honesty, leading us to respond in a similar manner.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

[Tolstoy and the Purple Chair] digs deep into that near-mystical connection between a reader and an author—that startling feeling that you are channeling someone you have never met...A gripping and inspiring book.

Connecticut Post

She is adept at stitching together musings about the books she is reading with memory and narrative from her own life.

The Christian Century

What is best in Tolstoy and the Purple Chair, however, is not the author’s literary criticism, but the way in which she blends her accounts of her reading with the story of her family and with broader human concerns.

Smoky Mountain News

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair is an absolutely lovely account of the healing power of literature.

Devourer of Books

The beauty of her project lies in seeing how books intertwine with daily life, how very much they affect our moods, interactions, and, especially important for Sankovitch, how we recover and process our memories….She makes reading seem accessible, relaxing, inspiring, fun.

|Los Angeles Times

Nina Sankovitch has crafted a dazzling memoir that reminds us of the most primal function of literature—to heal, to nurture and to connect us to our truest selves.

Thrity Umrigar

An original and touching…account of one woman’s lifelong affinity for books and her attempt to channel that affinity to deal with her grief after her sister dies. Tolstoy and the Purple Chair is an understated but moving story about the effects of a ‘year of magical reading.’

The Dartmouth

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair is a must-read for anyone who adores books. It is also a primer on the healing power of taking time off to grieve by immersing oneself in a revered activity.

The Book Bully

[Tolstoy and the Purple Chair] offers timeless wisdom, is uplifting and has a powerful message.

PsychCentral.com

Her deeply moving memoir artfully intertwines her immigrant family’s history with the universal themes of hope, resilience, and memory. Tolstoy and the Purple Chair celebrates not only the healing power of literature but its ability to connect us to the best of ourselves — and each other.

American Way

Sankovitch’s account works well because she uses her reading list to jump off into topics that are tangential, yet intriguing and often important.

Buffalo News

This graceful memoir describes a true love affair with books.

Boston Globe

A beautifully fluid, reflective, and astute memoir that gracefully combines affecting family history with expert testimony about how books open our minds to ‘the complexity and entirety of the human experience.’ Sankovitch’s reading list in all its dazzling variety is top-notch.

Booklist

The beauty of her project lies in seeing how books intertwine with daily life, how very much they affect our moods, interactions, and, especially important for Sankovitch, how we recover and process our memories….She makes reading seem accessible, relaxing, inspiring, fun.

Los Angeles Times

A beautifully fluid, reflective, and astute memoir that gracefully combines affecting family history with expert testimony about how books open our minds to ‘the complexity and entirety of the human experience.’ Sankovitch’s reading list in all its dazzling variety is top-notch.

Booklist

"A beautifully paced look at how mindfulness can affect the psyche."

Shelf Awareness

When Sankovitch lost her older sister to cancer, she was determined to "live her life double" in order to make up for her family's painful loss. But after three years spent at a frenetic pace, Sankovitch decided to slow down and rediscover the pleasure of books in order to reconnect with the memory of her sister. Despite the day-to-day responsibilities of raising four sons—and the holidays, vacations, and sudden illnesses that accompany a large family—Sankovitch vowed to read one book a day for an entire year and blog about it. In this entertaining bibliophile's dream, Sankovitch (who launched ReadAllDay.org and was profiled in the New York Times) found that her "year of magical reading" was "not a way to rid myself of sorrow but a way to absorb it." As well as being an homage to her sister and their family of readers, Sankovitch's memoir speaks to the power that books can have over our daily lives. Sankovitch champions the act of reading not as an indulgence but as a necessity, and will make the perfect gift from one bookworm to another. (June)

Publishers Weekly

What is best in Tolstoy and the Purple Chair, however, is not the author’s literary criticism, but the way in which she blends her accounts of her reading with the story of her family and with broader human concerns.

Smoky Mountain News

She is adept at stitching together musings about the books she is reading with memory and narrative from her own life.

The Christian Century

"Pleasure on a schedule" is how Sankovitch describes the plan detailed in her memoir. A married, stay-at-home mom with four sons, she decided to create calm in her life by sitting down, sitting still, and reading an entire book each day and completing a journal with her reaction to each book. Sankovitch knew she could read 70 pages an hour; she selected books no more than one inch thick. Other self-imposed rules dictated that she not read more than one book by any author. Nor could she read any book she had previously read. The book's title refers to Sankovitch's favorite author and the old chair she sat in to read each day. Beginning the project on her 46th birthday, Sankovitch entwines her comments about her reading selections with family stories including her parents surviving World War II in Europe, her upbringing in a tight-knit family of five who loved books and reading, and finally, her sister's death from bile-duct cancer. Sankovitch continues to write about her reading on her web site ReadAllDay.org as a way to encourage adults to read each day. VERDICT Sankovitch's frequent comments about unwashed laundry and the repetitive stories of baking Christmas cookies with her step-daughter may try the reader, but these are minor when considering her accomplishment and the appeal of her memoir.—Joyce Sparrow, Kenneth City, FL

Library Journal

This celebration of the richness of reading will reward anyone who loves to read.

This is a far better book than one might expect from the categories into which it seems to fall. It initially seems like a book in which the author commits to reading the encyclopedia, the Bible or some other exhaustive work, only in this case the challenge is to read, and review, a book per day for a full year. Yet the impetus fits this into a separate category of mourning memoirs, for it was the death of the author's sister that inspired her regimen. Ultimately, the results transcend categories, comparisons and matters of marketing, because what Sankovitch has accomplished in her first book is not only to celebrate the transformational, even healing, powers of reading, but to give the reader a feeling of reading those books as well, through the eyes of an astute reader. Her choices are eclectic, international, unpredictable (even by her), the main mandate being that each is manageable enough to be read in a day. Avoiding the tedium of a diary, the author deals with the books thematically in chapters that focus on love, death, family, even the joys of reading, as she skillfully interweaves a memoir of growing up in a bookish immigrant family and developing a complicated, loving relationship with her oldest sister. After cancer claimed her sister at the age of 46, Sankovitch plunged into relentless activity—"I was scared of living a life not worth the living." But hyperactivity failed to ease her mourning, so on her own 46th birthday, she dedicated herself to reading, not as a simple escape, but "as an escape back to life."

Intelligent, insightful and eloquent, Sankovitch takes the leader on the literary journey, demonstrating how after "trying to anaesthetize myself from what I'd lost...I'd finally stopped running away." As a bonus, even the well-read reader will be inspired to explore some of the books from this magical year.

Kirkus Reviews

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