This book is actually why I started this entire project. Not just because I wanted to finally get around to finishing this book, but because the book itself is a similar sort of note keeping and examination of what we read and why. It's a collection of monthly articles the author wrote for The Believer over the course of ten years. At the top of every article are two columns: Books Purchased and Books Read. The two lists are never, ever the same.
I first started reading Nick Hornby in college, about 16 years ago. He's one of those authors whose work has been bizarrely influential on my life; his book Fever Pitch isn't the reason I'm a soccer fan, but it is the reason I'm an Arsenal supporter, despite having never been to North London and having no intrinsic connection to the club. But he writes about his fandom, and how he loves his club, and music, and books, in such a way that it felt like coming home for me, and I imprinted on his team like a duckling on its mother.
We don't have entirely the same taste in books; his reading lists have much more literary fiction and much less genre than mine do, and he has more of an appetite for distressing nonfiction books than I do currently. But we do desire the same things from books: a great story, and characters who feel real, and plot twists that actually surprise us. He believes that reading should be pleasurable, even when it's challenging, and that we tell and consume stories both because they're important and because they're fun.
He also writes about writing in a way that I find deeply reassuring and inspiring. There's a generosity in how he approaches reading that makes me want to be a better reader and a better writer, and to trust myself and why I want to write. I read this book over the course of about two months, a couple of articles (each 6-8 pages long) a night three or four times a week, and it was a deeply comforting and steadying experience. For lack of a better way of putting it, his writing makes me feel known.
Grade: A
I first started reading Nick Hornby in college, about 16 years ago. He's one of those authors whose work has been bizarrely influential on my life; his book Fever Pitch isn't the reason I'm a soccer fan, but it is the reason I'm an Arsenal supporter, despite having never been to North London and having no intrinsic connection to the club. But he writes about his fandom, and how he loves his club, and music, and books, in such a way that it felt like coming home for me, and I imprinted on his team like a duckling on its mother.
We don't have entirely the same taste in books; his reading lists have much more literary fiction and much less genre than mine do, and he has more of an appetite for distressing nonfiction books than I do currently. But we do desire the same things from books: a great story, and characters who feel real, and plot twists that actually surprise us. He believes that reading should be pleasurable, even when it's challenging, and that we tell and consume stories both because they're important and because they're fun.
He also writes about writing in a way that I find deeply reassuring and inspiring. There's a generosity in how he approaches reading that makes me want to be a better reader and a better writer, and to trust myself and why I want to write. I read this book over the course of about two months, a couple of articles (each 6-8 pages long) a night three or four times a week, and it was a deeply comforting and steadying experience. For lack of a better way of putting it, his writing makes me feel known.
Grade: A
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