A Year Of Therapy In The Purple Chair

It's easy enough to cut yourself off from the rest of the world when you're feeling sad. Surely no one else can understand the pain you're going through. Nina Sankovitch couldn't fully express her grief to her family after her sister died, but she found within the pages of books a community of friends who helped her through a dark time.

Thousands of characters, hundreds of authors and a growing legion of followers. Sankovitch read one, two, even three books a day for a year and blogged about her experiences. That journey evolved into her book Tolstoy and the Purple Chair, which she'll present at Book Passage in Corte Madera on Sunday at 4 p.m.

Soon after Sankovitch lost her job, her older sister Anne-Marie was diagnosed with bile duct cancer. Five months after her diagnosis, Anne-Marie passed away at age 46.

"It was a very fast and terrible illness," Sankovitch said. "It sent my whole family into a tailspin. I filled up my life with a million activities just to keep from breaking down. But I was miserable and my family was unhappy with me. I needed to stop doing so much and take time to deal with it."

With the blessing and support of her husband and four children, Sankovitch re-engaged with one of her lifetime passions: reading.

"My whole life, I loved to read. I loved going to the Book Mobile when it was free and getting books, even though they smelled like gas fumes," Sankovitch said. She grew up reading Harriet the Spy, but possibly her most treasured novel was a copy of Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book given to her by her sister when they were schoolgirls.

"I felt like I arrived in her more adult world when she gave that to me," Sankovitch said.

"It made sense to read a book a day. I'd sit and read… I'd tap into a book and find a personal connection. It was like a year of therapy. I thought it would be a solitary year of me and my books but it was actually a community experience. I talked with my friends and my husband and parents about the books and it felt good. I felt better."

Her husband continued working while Sankovitch took a year off from her job search to focus on her healing project. The children, Peter, Michael, George and Martin, stepped up around the house. "It was amazing. The kids normally would eat and 30 minutes later they'd be in another room or in the yard. Now, they were sitting at the table after dinner, talking about school and everything."

Sankovitch had a few rules for herself: She couldn't read more than one book by an author and she couldn't read any book she'd read already. She read everything from biographies, history, fiction and graphic novels. "Mysteries are my candy," she admits. At 70 pages an hour, she could finish off a short book while working out on the stationary bike.

"My family saw in a month that I was calmer, I wasn't crying anymore. I was talking about my sister without breaking down," Sankovitch said. "It was a horrible experience for my parents and for them to see something positive come out of this was good for them. We can still move forward and we carry her with us as we move forward."

As Sankovitch continued to read, she could see a connection between the stories and her own life. That became the story she wanted to share.

"I didn't want to write about the year. I wrote reviews of the books on my website," Sankovitch said. "I wanted to share all the life lessons I picked up during a year of reading. That's when the book became a history of my family and what I found in that reading. One lesson I learned was that it's important to have memories and to keep those memories alive.

"I was lucky enough to have this extra year. Since my book came out, I've met a million more readers who turned to books when they were unhappy or depressed. I want to read for pleasure and a little bit of escape."

Her own story helped others with their healing. "I feel like people know my sister and a part of my life and I know the people who read about her," Sankovitch said. "I got an e-mail from a woman whose best friend's daughter was killed at Virginia Tech and her friend went into total depression. This woman would sit next to her friend and read aloud. It was a beautiful idea … just to hear your friend take the time to read to you."