PLEASE NOTE: This book may have an alternate cover. The following description is provided as a guide only and may contain text that doesn't specifically relate to this item. I have a New Year's plan - Nelson writes in the prologue to this charming diary of an unapologetic "readaholic." Her goal: to read a book a week for a year and try "to get down on paper what I've been doing for years in my mind: matching up the reading experience with the personal one and watching where they intersect-or don't." Armed with a list of books - the author - a Glamour senior contributing editor - the New York Observer's publishing columnist and a veteran book reviewer - begins her 52-week odyssey. She doesn't necessarily stick to her list - which includes classics ("the homework I didn't do in college") - books everyone's talking about (like David McCullough's John Adams) and titles as diverse as Call It Sleep - by Henry Roth - and Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting. But she succeeds in sharing her infectious enthusiasm for literature in general - the act of reading and individual books and authors. Along the way - Nelson unearths treasures. She becomes enamored of David Mura's Turning Japanese - a memoir that helps her understand her Japanese-American husband better - and looks to Henry Dunow's The Way Home - about coaching baseball - while trying to help her second-grade son improve his athletic skills. Most readers will probably come away from this love letter to books eager to pursue some of Nelson's favorites-Nora Ephron's Heartburn - perhaps - or Emma Donoghue's Slammerkin-which is what makes Nelson's reflections inspiring and worthwhile.
