Nick Hornby: Book Believer
Posted by: Misha Stone
When was the last time a book review made you laugh? I mean really laugh–like the involuntary laughter that busts out of you while reading on the bus?
Most book reviews aren’t written to make you laugh. Most book reviewers don’t invite you into their private lives. (What does Michiko Kakutani watch at night, I wonder? Does anyone else wonder? Or does she only read, read, read!)
Most book reviewers aren’t Nick Hornby. The British author of such books as High Fidelity, About a Boy and the teen novel, Slam, wrote a column for The Believer magazine called “Stuff I’ve Been Reading” from 2003 to 2008. Every month, Hornby shares his list of “Books Bought” and “Books Read.” For one, those two lists at the top of every column are the cleverest, most honest portrayal of a reader’s life. Right there–our aspirations, our whims, and then the reality of what we actually get to.
Many of the excerpts of Hornby’s column are available online, but they were also released from Believer Books in three publications: The Polysyllabic Spree; Housekeeping vs. The Dirt; and Shakespeare Wrote For Money.
I would suggest you run out and buy or borrow these books and enjoy them right away.
The books themselves might be worthy of discussion. I wouldn’t ordinarily suggest that a book group try a volume of book reviews, but in this case I unreservedly do so. For one, Hornby’s periodic railings against literary novels that are too literary (or incomprehensible) for their own good would be a ripe topic for discussion, and would invite a variety of opinions. But if your group isn’t keen on reading reviews for the month, you could use Hornby’s reviews as another avenue for discovering what to read next.
But I swear that once you start following Hornby the reader, you’ll follow him anywhere. That he stopped writing “Stuff I’ve Been Reading” last year makes me immeasurably sad. There’s nothing like vicariously experiencing someone else’s reading life, especially when it makes you snort your coffee in the morning.
March 14th, 2009 at 10:12 am
Nick Hornby is the one who dubbed the Alex Awards the “Not Boring” Awards. He is the patron saint of the Alex Awards Committee.
And Keir’s reveiws make me laff. And David W’s. And Bill’s. When he swears.