Get behind me , SJP .
If you followSarah Jessica Parkeron Instagram, you’ll know she’s a serious bookworm. However, her latest revelation about her reading habits has caused quite the conversation online.
Speaking toPage Sixat the PEN America Literary Gala last week, Sarah Jessica revealed that she’s currently “reading two books a day” in preparation to judge the Booker Prize. “It’s intense to be reading [that number of books],” she told the reporter on the red carpet. “The volume is kind of hard to convey, what it’s like to have as many books we are given the opportunity to read in a month. It’s quite something.”
For context, theBooker Prizeis awarded each year to “the best sustained work of fiction written in English,” and it’s up to the board of judges to decide what that is — which, as you can imagine, involves reading a lottttttt of books. But, despite Sarah Jessica’s solid credentials as someone who literally runs their ownpublishing imprint(SJP Lit, look it up), there are a lot of people who think she’s exaggerating her stats.
“they must be audiobooks or really short books cause how do you even have that much time,” someone onX wrotein response to her new quotes. “Me when I lie,” repliedsomeone else. Others even questioned how it’d be possible to properly absorb such a huge amount of literature in such short periods. “I could read this fast, but I wouldn’t remember shit I read afterwards though, would have plots mixed up and shit LMFAO,” theywrote.
And while SJP certainly has some doubters, plenty of people have also spoken out in her defense by reminding the skeptics that she’s a “famously voracious reader” who can (more than likely) afford to spend entire days reading and not much else. “fun to see a lot of people who probably read the equivalent of two books a day in their time spent online express disbelief that someone could spend the same amount of time actually reading instead,” another person wrote, making a very valid point about social media consumption.
Someone else noted that SJP previously commented on aBooker Prize Instagram postabout the judges’ reading schedule, vowing to do it herself one day. “i’m actually kinda obsessed because Sarah Jessica Parker saw this video on Instagram a few years ago about the Booker Prize judges reading 170 books in seven months and she commented ‘oh let me try!’ and now she’s deep in the middle of doing it,” they wrote, sharing a screenshot ofthe comment.
Well, with so much speculation as to how she finds the time to get through so many books, SJP helpfully provided some answers. “You just do,” she said on the red carpet when asked how she makes the time in her day-to-day life. “I didn’t do it last year because I knew I was shooting and doing a play and doing the series, so this year I knew that I had a different kind of time available to me, so I just read morning to night. Any opportunity that exists, I’m reading.”
Well, there you have it, naysayers. Pick up a book.
