It was with great trepidation that I read Nick Hornby's latest collection of columns from The Believer. Not because I didn't want to read it--in fact, I couldn't wait--but because I knew I would have to post something about it. As far as I'm concerned, Hornby is the king of blogging on books--though of course his format is more formal and I would hate to compare what he does to mere blogging.
I've only read one Hornby book that I didn't love ( I hated How to Be Good) so I was really looking forward to Shakespeare Wrote for Money. This is the last collection of Hornby's Stuff I've Been Reading column and I'd say he's probably right to take a break. Everyone should catch his earlier collections, Housekeeping vs. the Dirt and The Polysyllabic Spree. I've always gotten suggestions of what to read, as I did here, but he seems a little tired in this collection.
In Shakespeare, Hornby discovers Young Adult literature and like any recent convert, he's a zealot, defending his interest vehemently lest anyone take him less seriously than before. He also makes an attempt at self-deprecation in order to make a point about self-deprecation; he's enthusiastic about everything he reads--perhaps because he's apparently not allowed to trash any books, or to be even vaguely critical of an author; he gives everyone a free pass on having to read the uber-depressing novel by Cormac McCarthy The Road (thank you, thank you!); and it is YA lit. that helps him climb out of the hole he gets into over the future of the earth and humanity.
I will miss his columns, but can only hope this means more novels from Nick Hornby. In the introduction to Shakespeare, Sarah Vowel writes:[Hornby] is quitting Stuff I've Been Reading so as to "spend more time with his family" What--they don't let you read books in rehab?Incidently, her introduction is quite funny and makes me want to read her latest, The Wordy Shipmates, which I've considered and rejected several times since seeing her on The Daily Show. (Well, that sounds really half-hearted, doesn't it?)
There was a passage in Hornby's novel, A Long Way Down that was so funny, I actually did pee my pants. Nothing quite so dramatic in this writing, but I did like this: [Hornby had been refusing to read some book that everyone was nagging him to read] ...The same people who had been telling me to read the posh novel told me to read the posh memoir, and I felt that a further refusal would have indicated some kind of Trotskyite militancy that I really don't feel. It's more a mild distate than a deeply entrenched wordview."
I've only read one Hornby book that I didn't love ( I hated How to Be Good) so I was really looking forward to Shakespeare Wrote for Money. This is the last collection of Hornby's Stuff I've Been Reading column and I'd say he's probably right to take a break. Everyone should catch his earlier collections, Housekeeping vs. the Dirt and The Polysyllabic Spree. I've always gotten suggestions of what to read, as I did here, but he seems a little tired in this collection.
In Shakespeare, Hornby discovers Young Adult literature and like any recent convert, he's a zealot, defending his interest vehemently lest anyone take him less seriously than before. He also makes an attempt at self-deprecation in order to make a point about self-deprecation; he's enthusiastic about everything he reads--perhaps because he's apparently not allowed to trash any books, or to be even vaguely critical of an author; he gives everyone a free pass on having to read the uber-depressing novel by Cormac McCarthy The Road (thank you, thank you!); and it is YA lit. that helps him climb out of the hole he gets into over the future of the earth and humanity.
I will miss his columns, but can only hope this means more novels from Nick Hornby. In the introduction to Shakespeare, Sarah Vowel writes:[Hornby] is quitting Stuff I've Been Reading so as to "spend more time with his family" What--they don't let you read books in rehab?Incidently, her introduction is quite funny and makes me want to read her latest, The Wordy Shipmates, which I've considered and rejected several times since seeing her on The Daily Show. (Well, that sounds really half-hearted, doesn't it?)
There was a passage in Hornby's novel, A Long Way Down that was so funny, I actually did pee my pants. Nothing quite so dramatic in this writing, but I did like this: [Hornby had been refusing to read some book that everyone was nagging him to read] ...The same people who had been telling me to read the posh novel told me to read the posh memoir, and I felt that a further refusal would have indicated some kind of Trotskyite militancy that I really don't feel. It's more a mild distate than a deeply entrenched wordview."
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