John’s Blog

09 May, 2005

The Polysyllabic Spree, by Nick Hornby

Posted by: John In: Books

Nick Hornby is a fun author who wrote High Fidelity, About a Boy and How to Be Good. This is a short collection of 14 months of his essays from the Believer magazine. In each essay, he lists the books he purchased that month, the books he actually read, and ties them all together in a sort of stream-of-consciousness narrative. He’s open and honest about it — he always buys more than he can read; he often doesn’t finish things he starts. It’s interesting to see how he moves between different styles and subjects. Sometimes he reads only a given author in a month (he read all of Salinger’s work in a week). Sometimes it’s just a random variety. Anyway, kind of fun to read but nothing too tremendous.

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  • John: There is a Bird on Your Head is indeed a fine choice. Well picked, MrZ's son.
  • mrz: My son wonders why Mo Willems isn't on this list (we've moved on and are no into "There is a Bird on Your Head!" which he can read on his own and crac
  • Dan Barrett: Amen. The book is a very enlightening window into the man. The more I learn about him the better I like him. I am a political junkie, and I can hones

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