Sarah Jessica Parker can add another skill to her long resume — speed reader.
The “And Just Like That…” star is currently reading up to two books a day as she preps to be a Booker Prize judge this year, she told Page Six Thursday at the PEN America Literary Gala.
The Booker Prize is a prestigious British literary award bestowed each year on a novel written in the English language. The five-person judging panel is comprised of authors, journalists, as well as politicians, musicians, and actors.
Parker, 60, who has her own book imprint called SJP for Hogarth, knows it’s an “honor” and “privilege” to be a judge but admits it can be taxing.
“It’s intense to be reading (that number of books), 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.”
The actress shared that she’s able to do it because her schedule has freed up.
“I didn’t do it last year because I knew I was shooting and doing the series [“And Just Like That…”], and I knew this year I had a different kind of time available to me, to read morning till night.
“Any opportunity that exists to read, I’m reading.”
The “Hocus Pocus” star has been a bookworm since she was a child, a habit that was fostered by her mother and something she has passed down to her own three children.
“We always had a ton of books around the house and we were regular visitors to the library,” she shared. “We were not allowed to leave the house without a book in our hands, even when we were toddlers and couldn’t read.”
“She read to us constantly,” Parker continued, “so I did the same for my children, and they came to the same conclusion, which is (that) books are the greatest possible friends you could have.”
A slew of authors were also at the event, which honored Parker, including Jodi Picoult, Robert Caro, Judy Blume, Michael Cunningham and Dinaw Mengestu.
Picoult, who has sold millions of books, told Page Six that she’s somewhat surprised by fans who are upset by her anti-President Trump social media posts.
“If you read my books, it would be really hard not to know where my inclinations lie,” she shared.
However, what upsets her even more are comments that complain, “I should not be political, and I should just write.
“All books are political; nobody writes in a vacuum.”
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