This is going to be a joint review of all three of Nick Hornby's collections of Believer columns.

First off, I need to say I'm deeply relieved that Nick Hornby can write nonfiction, and that's it's just Fever Pitch that is miserable. I was a little worried.

Secondly, you should not read these books if you do not want your list of books to read to grow significantly. While is is part of the Believer's schtick that reviews must be positive (the books he doesn't like must only be referred to anonymously), his enthusiasm for the books he writes about is infectious.

It's also nice to see the reviews written in a context of the books being read. He doesn't go into great detail of plot, characters, or themes. He just talks about things he liked in the book, to the degree of depth he needs to get his point across, and moves on. He also talks about himself and the experience of reading the book.

He also lists the books he bought at the start of each column, not all of which get read. It's reassuring to see the dashed intentions of wanting to give the books your love, but just not having enough time or devotion.

I read this book first, accidentally out of order. I read it over a couple commutes, while I read the other two in a day each, while I traveled to and from Cleveland. The first two books (Polysyllabic Spree and this one) have excerpts from a few of his favorite books, and the last one (Shakespeare Wrote for Money) has an introduction by Sarah Vowell. It's not enough to warrant a purchase if you were a devoted Believer reader, but is a nice touch.

He's stopped doing the column, but I suppose I've been given enough book suggestions to fill a few years now.

I picked up this book while whiling away a couple of hours in a Borders. It is the kind of reward that browsing often delivers - you follow your interests and intuition from, say, the crafting to the history section, and somewhere along the way you find an unsought gem. When I came across Nick Hornby's Housekeeping vs. The Dirt, I had been looking for his High Fidelity, to read the source material for the movie I had so enjoyed. Housekeeping vs. The Dirt is Hornby’s monthly accounts of his “books read” and “books bought,” which were originally written for the Believer magazine. A quick reading of a few excerpts had me sold.

Hornby’s reading lists follow his fancy, which he admits is predictable: “I’m always reading bloody works of literature.” But he humorously embraces his homogeneous tastes, as in the month where he confides: “I would like my personal reading map to resemble a map of the British Empire circa 1900; I’d like people to look at it and think, How the hell did he end up right over there? As it is, I make only tiny little incursions into the territory of my own ignorance…” The book reviews themselves also follow their author’s idiosyncrasies. Rather than give a synopsis and measured analysis of each book, Hornby hits on what is striking and essential to him, praising one book for its endearing characters and spot-on prose, but dooming another to “remain nameless because I hated it so much.” He also spends a great deal of time shooting the shit, from one reader to another - and he’s really good at it.

As much as Housekeeping vs. The Dirt is about the content of books, it’s also about the experience of reading, and the relationship between reader and book. His tales of personal battles to expand his genre repertoire are an example of this, and there are plenty of others. When talking about his book’s namesake, Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping, he shared that it took him “forever” to read, but that he liked this because “the time I spent with it means that it lives with me still.” Conversely, Motley Crue’s autobiography The Dirt is so bad that he recommends not reading for a month before (because the “strong flavors…will overwhelm pretty much any other literary delicacy you may have consumed”), and not reading for a month after (because “it will be hard to see the point”). Hornby’s meta-reading musings add another layer of richness to his commentaries.

It doesn’t matter if you never read a single book Hornby recommends – the reviews themselves are genius, and seriously funny. I can’t remember the last time a book made me laugh so much. And ironically, you might be better off sticking to reading his reviews rather than his recommendations. I’m only one-for-three when it comes to liking what he does. I also just finished one of Hornby’s own novels, A Long Way Down, which was, bluntly spoken, a waste of time and a reminder that being a “New York Times Bestseller” means fuck-all. That said, I do plan to buy his other two review compilations - and even if they’re only half as good as this one, I’m still in for a treat.

Housekeeping vs. The Dirt is a collection of Nick Hornby's columns in The Believer. Since I can't afford a subscription to the magazine I periodically read bits online and I buy Hornby's collections when I find them at a used book shop. I read The Polysyllabic Spree awhile back and didn't even realize another book was out there. Oh my goodness, I just realized the pun in the title. They are both book titles Hornby read and reviewed. Sheesh.

His subtitle is "Fourteen Months of Massively Witty Adventures in Reading Chronicled by The National Book Critics Circle Finalist for Criticism"

Each column begins with the month and year, next the list of books bought by Hornby that month and then the list of books read. What follows is an essay that discusses the books he read and his views on them blended with his witticisms on life and literature and "censorship" by editors (the 'polysyllabic spree' at The Believer... all very tongue in cheek). He gushes over Gilead, makes comments about his pal Sarah Vowell and her most recent book. He explores the ideas behind what makes a classic a "classic" and the difference between being a "person of letters" and simply a person who loves books. It's a conversation that keeps coming up in my life. Interesting stuff. Hornby's even sold me on reading a few of the titles he writes about. If you like books about books and a wry sense of humor you might like this. I did.

2/18/2013: Another volume of Hornby's monthly essays in The Believer, these from 2005-2006: part book review, part personal journal, part general essay about literary life, reading, and living with books. I love them! Hornby is witty, sympathetic, and articulate, and I laugh aloud at his riffs on the most random topics and juxtapositions. I also love his defensiveness about his inability to stop buying books even when he knows that he'll never be able to read them all. Every month's column is headed by two lists: Books He's Bought that month, and Books He's Read that month. And almost every month he makes up new excuses as to how it was that he found himself buying books he may never read. Which for some reason makes me feel so much better about my own weaknesses on this front! He also includes small excerpts from some of his favorite reads, which is fascinating, as he reads widely (or randomly--same thing, really!) and chooses pieces from many authors I've never heard of. And they're always interesting.

I love the way Hornby compares and contrasts all things British and American, much of the time as though he's truly puzzled by the idea that the two peoples could speak the same language (more or less) yet see the world so very differently. I also love his insights into many of the books he did get to read (and I try hard not to write those books down--because my To-Read Pile is too big already!). He writes as though he's talking to his readers, inviting them into the conversation about whatever is on his mind. I'm looking forward to the next volume!

This book and its predecessor, Polysyllabic Spree, seem to be made for posters on this site. These collections of Hornby's columns for the magazine The Believer are his musings on what he has read this month. Supposedly -and Hornby makes it clear he's not necessarily to be trusted on this or any other topic- the magazine stands by one commandment: "THOU SHALT NOT SLAG ANYONE OFF." This means you're getting a fan's notes more than a critic's analysis.

This seems just the forum for the author of High Fidelity with its Top 10 lists and Songbook with its essays on some of his favorite pop recordings (get the McSweeny's hardback; it comes with a CD of some of the selections). Hornby strings a bit of through-narrative by describing the overlords of the Believer in their choir robes and chiding ways. In this volume two of his columns he also takes frequent light-hearted pokes at his friend Sarah Vowell who he refers to as Violet Incredible.

What makes it seems so appropriate for this site is each chapter/column opens with a list of books he's bought this month and books he's read. They rarely match up and they readily serve as useful wish-list when considering what to read next.

Oh great! Instead of knocking down my tbr list I've just increased it. Thanks a lot Nick Hornby!

Nick Hornby reads quite a bit of literary fiction, unfortunately, in Housekeeping vs. the Dirt, yet another collection of Believer magazine columns on what he's been reading. He's in a literary fiction rut, Atonement, Housekeeping, things like that, and he questions why, on the eve of the death of the modern novel, there are so many literary novels about novelists. How can the public be expected to tolerate such self-involved navel-gazing, while the authors bemoan that Joe Lunchbox doesn't read their books. Then he reads All the King's Men and, to quote,

"The edition I read is the new 'restored' edition of this novel, containing a whole bunch of stuff– a hundred pages, apparently, –that were omitted from the version originally published. A hundred pages! Oh, dear God. Those of us still prepared to pick up a sixty-year-old Pullitzer Prize winner should be rewarded, not horribly and unfairly punished."

His publisher sends him a cute new edition of Candide, tipping in at ninety pages, and he reads it for its modest length contrasted to its classic rank.

http://surfeitofbooks.blogspot.com/20...

Reading Hornby’s columns is just fun and so relatable. Plus I always leave with a new list of books to track down!

The title represents a range, the superb novel by the sublime Marilynne Robinson is Housekeeping, and The Dirt is the oral history of Motely Crue. The range is Hornby’s reading for a year or so and the collection is his second such month-by-month chronicle of that reading for The Believer magazine. The first, The Polysylabbic Spree, was a wonderful diverting pleasure and this one is quite as enjoyable. Funny, clever, insightful, and charming. Some old jokes (the Spree) and some new ones that tire quickly (friend Sarah Vowell’s Hollywood success). But mostly the jokes are fresh, sharp, and only occasionally unconvincing (the self-deprecation ones; he’s too smart and too well read, however discursively, for that to fly). I’ve already bought one of his featured books, Citizen Vince by Jess Walter, and will probably consider a few others. I enjoyed having my judgments confirmed in books that overlapped our reading lists (Dylan’s Chronicles, Satrapi’s Persepolis, Robinson’s Housekeeping and Gilead, and a couple of others.) He enjoyed Freakonomics but challenges its ultimate meaning with a few insightful questions that gave me pause. He liked Greil Marcus’s book about “Like a Rolling Stone,” which I thought was full of shit. His praise did not give my judgment pause but it was nice to learn that someone enjoyed the book and the fact that he’s right so often allows one to forgive fallibility. I may even subscribe to The Believer so I don’t have to wait each year or so for Hornby’s next collection. By the way, in Housekeepng vs. The Dirt, Housekeeping wins going away.

I picked up this little book used--I love Nick Hornby's novels, and loved this collection of columns about books in a periodical called "The Believer" which is based in San Francisco. Great commentary on books and life in general, much of it funny, and some books I intend to read for sure!

Loved it, as I love everything by Nick Hornby. I would not start with this as your introduction to his writing, but if you've read him before and enjoyed it, you will enjoy this one, too. Somewhere between the sarcasm and the self-deprecation, Hornby he sneaks in these brilliant insights about life. And he consistently makes me laugh.

Do you know the joy of Book Lust? Do you know its cousin Lit Crush? Booklust is deep, visceral, indescribable joy directed at the object of said lust. Litcrush is, obviously, a crush--it is fun, lighthearted, and makes you wriggle like an excited child mostly because having a crush is delightful.

I feel like I spent these first two weeks of school carefully planning my route to class in order to run into Nick Hornby and have a reading conversation with him. We are such a pair! He is sooooo wonderful and he talked right to me! Whatever, widely published book of essays/reviews/conversations, it was definitely right to me. Oh, frabjous day! Calloo, callay!