Nina Sankovitch

Nina Sankovitch is the author of Tolstoy and the Purple Chair and Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Celebrating the Joys of Letter Writing. She was born in Evanston, Illinois, and is a graduate of Evanston Township High School, Tufts University, and Harvard Law School.

Sankovitch's new book is The Lowells of Massachusetts: An American Family.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:

People often ask me if I still read a book a day, as I did during my year of magical reading. Although I no longer can read six or so hours a day, I still enjoy two to three books a week as a very necessary dose of escape and comfort. I also read eight to ten books a month as a judge for Book of the Month Club, which is a wonderful way of finding out about all the great new books coming out. I picked Kathleen Rooney’s Lillian Boxfish Takes A Walk for January, a lovely, engaging, moving, and unforgettable story of an older woman taking a very long walk through New York City on New Year’s Eve 1984 and looking back at her twentieth century life in the city.

I recently finished Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders and I absolutely loved it. I knew the story of Lincoln and the death of his son, and in my book Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Celebrating the Joys of Letter Writing, I write about all the condolence letters that the Lincolns received after poor Willie’s death. Saunders is a genius at portraying the grief of Lincoln and also the way in which both contemporaries of Lincoln and later biographers saw that period in his life. Civil War is on, boys are dying by the thousands, and how does this death fit in with all that sorrow? A beautiful, beautiful book. I am re-reading Lincoln in the Bardo now for one of my book groups, called “The Great Lines Book Group” because each of us has to bring to our monthly discussion a selection of our favorite lines from the chosen book. There are so many great lines to choose from in Lincoln in the Bardo, such as “These and all things started as nothing, latent within a vast energy-broth, but then we named them, and loved them, and in this way, brought them forth.” Just beautiful.

I am also in the midst of reading a selection of books I just picked up at my local library book sale, including The Rector of Justin by Louis Auchincloss, Curtain by Agatha Christie, and Aloft by Chang-rae Lee, all by authors I love.

Visit Nina Sankovitch's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Lowells of Massachusetts.

The Page 99 Test: The Lowells of Massachusetts.

--Marshal Zeringue