Nina Sankovitch

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair

Nina Sankovitch was born in Evanston, Illinois, the third daughter of immigrant parents. Her father escaped the fate of his three siblings, who were murdered in Belarus during World War II.

From Tolstoy and the Purple Chair:

“My year of reading was my own hiatus, my own suspension in time between the overwhelming sorrow of my sister’s death and the future that now waits before me. During my yearlong respite filled with books, I recuperated. Even more, I learned how to move beyond recuperation to living.”

Nina’s family adored books. Her mother, a Belgian, taught French literature; her middle sister, Natasha, is a professor of comparative literature. Her father eased his slow recuperation from tuberculosis by reading novels out loud. From an early age, Nina turned to books for solace and guidance.

After graduating from Tufts University, Sankovitch earned a law degree from Harvard in 1987 and worked in corporate law. Even as a lawyer, she would often close her office door to read books.

In 2005 her older sister, Anne-Marie, died of bile duct cancer, and Sankovitch was devastated. After three years, still grief-stricken, she decided to work through her grief by reading a book a day in an effort to learn how people in books dealt with bereavement, and chronicled her progress on her website, readallday.org. Along with novels and mysteries, she covered a breadth of styles, including humor, musical oral history, and books on grief. The project earned positive press and a book deal. Tolstoy and the Purple Chair established her literary reputation and allayed some of her despair.

Sankovitch lives in Westport, Connecticut, with her husband and four sons—ages eight through sixteen—all voracious readers.

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Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Celebrating the Joys of Letter Writing. After finding a trove of old letters in her apartment, Nina explores what’s special about the handwritten letter.

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair*

Nina created this recipe in honor of Tolstoy and all the books she read in her purple chair.

6 oz. Prosecco Rosato (sparkling rose wine)

2 oz. Hpnotiq

2 oz. cranberry juice

Lemon peels

Pour chilled Prosecco and Hpnotiq into a daiquiri glass and top up with chilled cranberry juice. Garnish with strips of lemon peel. Serves 2.

*As made on BookGirlTV interview with Nina Sankovitch.