I must admit I did skim a tad on this one, but Nick has his moments like he always does. I can so see him as Sarah Vowell as pals too. Classic. And I loved Nick's ultimate message here: Read what you like, not what you think you need to be reading. My reading hero!

I love reading Nick Hornby's columns, especially when he is talking about other books.

Hornby's second collection of Believer essays in which he writes about the books he bought and the books he read in a given month is just as good as his first one. I particularly enjoyed the first half of the preface, in which he outlines the philosophy, so to speak, that drives these essays. In short, Hornby writes about what he's been reading in a given month--which, he explains, is different from writing about a book he's been paid to review, mainly because the books he's writing about in the Believer column are books he intended to read regardless. This in turn leads Hornby to write not just about specific books, but also about why he chooses to read what he reads as well as why he reads in general.

Hornby presents himself--particularly in the second half of the preface, but also in some of the essays--as one of those readers who prefers a "fun" reading experience. He has a chip on his shoulder regarding "literary" novels, and seems to dislike them--not as literary novels per se, but because he doesn't enjoy reading them. He seems to be on par with Jonathan Franzen in this respect, except that for some reason I find Hornby's dislike for "difficult" novels to be less infuriating than Franzen's somehow more paradoxically snobby stance on the topic. Perhaps because Hornby takes a more (suspiciously disingenuous, but whatever) "I'm just a dumb ol' novelist who likes the plainer prose" approach. I certainly don't begrudge him his preferences (and I absolutely agree that a fan of The Da Vinci Code should never be scoffed at; yes, that book's a turd, but keep your opinions to yourself!). In any case, I can appreciate Hornby's perspective, and am happy to disagree with him on this specific point while still enjoying his essays. (Contra Franzen, whose imperious proclamations on this topic drive me *insane*.)

I'm also happy to disagree with Hornby's skewed understanding of Anthony Burgess's sense of humor. In his November 2005 column he calls Burgess out as a poor judge of comedy--or at least a poor barometer for what kind of book Hornby would find funny. Hornby doesn't say why he thinks this (except to imply that Burgess wouldn't be a fan of Jackass or Seinfeld), but I suspect he's maybe thinking of n  A Clockwork Orangen, a book that's hardly a knee-slapper. But Burgess also wrote the Enderby novels, which are authentically funny. As in, absurdly, laugh-out-loud funny. So, what the hell, Hornby?? Sure, n  The Wanting Seedn and n  Tremor of Intentn are perhaps not as hilarious(?) as a guy getting his ass stapled together, but still, I think Burgess knew from funny.

These are minor quibbles, though. By and large, I find myself agreeing with a lot of what Hornby says. He's right that novels about novelists tend to be kind of tiresome, and that a lot of modern science fiction can be hard to understand unless you have a PhD in quantum theory, and a bunch of other stuff.

My absolute favorite moment in this book was the beginning of Hornby's April 2005 column, in which he recounts an exchange he witnessed between the barber who was shaving his head and the younger, female hairstylist standing next to him who was patently unimpressed when the barber told her Hornby is famous. I was laughing so hard at the denouement that I had to read it to my wife, who laughed as hard as I was--which is saying something! (Not that my wife is averse to laughing or anything, but I find it's generally difficult to get someone to laugh out loud at an isolated bit of prose when he or she doesn't know the larger context.)

Anyway, this is another great collection. I look forward to the third.

Now if you'll excuse me I need to track down the collected works of Ednit. Apparently she's amazing.

This didn’t hit quite right for me. Too stream-of-consciousness and not enough of his clever, quirky characters.

3.5/5
Esta es una colección de ensayos, donde el autor habla sobre sus lecturas en un periodo de 14 meses.

El autor tiene un buen sentido del humor, algunas de sus frases me sacaron una que otra carcajada. No se que mas decir de este libro, si eres fan de Nick Hornby es posible que te guste.

Nick Hornby geht der Frage auf den Grund "Was stellt für jemanden, der berufstätig ist, Kinder hat und auch noch fernsieht ein normales Lesepensum dar?" und beantwortet die Frage auf 139 Seiten gleich selbst. Er erzählt von Büchern, die er gekauft und die er gelesen hat. Vieles wurde ihm von Freunden empfohlen, einiges wurde ihm zur Rezension gegeben und auf manches Buch ist er eher durch Zufall gestoßen. Eines haben alle diese Bücher aber gemeinsam: sie haben ihn auf die eine oder andere Weise berührt, wie alle Bücher, die wir lesen oder besitzen, uns berühren.

Das Buch hat mir großen Spaß gemacht. Nick Hornby schreibt mit einer Begeisterung über "seine" Bücher, wie ich sie selten erlebt habe. Das Buch hat mir noch mehr Lust aufs Lesen gemacht als ich ohnehin schon habe. Leider habe ich nur wenige der Bücher, von denen er berichtet, gelesen. Eines davon ist "Exzession" von Iain M. Banks. Es hat mich fast ein bisschen beruhigt, dass er damit ähnliche Probleme hatte wie ich. Allerdings habe ich durchgehalten während Hornby abgebrochen hat. Sein Kommentar dazu "Verdammter Iain M. Banks- er hat mein Selbstvertrauen zerstört!" Das kann ich gut verstehen, denn einige seiner Bücher sind auch für mich als erklärten Banks-Fan schwer zu verstehen. Aber vielleicht sollte ich vor einem re-Read von Exzession erst monatelang Slayer hören. Offensichtlich sind Fans von Heavy Metal die eigentliche Zielgruppe für diese Bücher. Es beruhigt mich, dass auch Hornby nicht davor gefeit ist, Bücher doppelt zu kaufen. Damit bin ich also in guter Gesellschaft. Ein echtes Lesehighlight.

Trying something new in 2014 and giving books a chance to marinate before rating them.

Having said that, this is the third of these Nick Hornby/The Believer collections that I've read, and there's a reason I keep picking them up. The thing I like most about talking to other people about what they read and about reading things that other people recommend to me is that you learn a lot about your fellow reader that way. The nice thing about what Hornby does for these Believer columns is he gives you the context of his life and his mood and all the other uniquely Hornbian specifics that inform his level of enjoyment of what he's reading. I learn about Nick Hornby via the books he reads without having to go to the trouble of reading the books myself. How handy is that?

If what you're really in the market for is book recommendations, he read 67 books for this collection. I'd already read 4 of them. I own another 4. And I added 5 to my to-read shelf.

Oh, and he's funny. I actually prefer these books to his novels, though I think that would make him sad.

Its crazy to think that I was reading Nick Hornby's first installment of this series almost exactly 3 months ago... about a month exactly before shelter-in-place was officially declared for Washington state. So much has changed.

But you know what hasn't changed? My love for Hornby's informative, irreverent, and welcoming series that he wrote for Believer magazine, back in the '00s. Throughout the column, he gives monthly or bi-monthly reports on what he's been buying, what he's been reading, and how he's been living, with plenty of humorous, personal, and authentic connections between the three topics.

Not only is it fun to see an author's life in motion, even through these limited glimpses, but its also just so completely apparent how much joy and life Hornby finds in the daily, regular action of reading. This installment is even more so than the first, a treatise for the improvement of global reading habits. He himself rejects the concept that only large, lumbering heroes of classic literature are worth reading; he champions the concept of popular fiction for all, even if what they're reading is just The DaVinci Code (a much more potent and timely literary reference to make in the mid-'00s, I'm sure).

He does name check statistics to prove this point, about how global literacy rates at a decline, particularly among young people... I'm sure he's very vindicated now, some decade plus later, at how completely that trajectory has been reversed!

For the most part, this book is just as engaging and entertaining as Hornby's first book of reading essays. But there is one big reason I am not as in love with this one, and have also lost a bit of respect for Nick Hornby. Normally, I have no problem with people preferring one genre over another. Don't like romance novels? Cool, don't read them. Not a fan of science fiction? Whatever, that's your decision. But when Hornby stated that he was trying to expand the type of stuff he reads by trying something he never would have picked up before, I expected him to at least give it an honest try. He picked a science fiction novel, was embarrassed to be seen buying it at the store, tried reading maybe 20 pages of it, and then abandoned it, saying it made him feel stupid. I'm sorry, but that's a cop out. Seriously? You just read 20 pages, and then gave up on it? That's not really trying. Plus, if you found Iain Banks' work confusing, there are millions of other sci-fi books to try, many of which aren't also speculative fiction, which is inherently a bit confusing. Overall, despite the fact that he claimed the "metal-heads" who read sci-fi are smarter than him, Hornby's overall attitude in response to his limited contact with one sci-fi novel was very condescending. I even ended up putting this one down for about a month, because every time I picked it up, I remembered my annoyance. For now, I'm just glad to be done with it. Eventually, I'll read the next one in the series, but honestly, not for a while.

Nick Hornby is not Charles Dickens, he is not Mark Twain and I doubt his books will be in print in 50 years, although I hope that they are. However, this collection of columns is witty, entertaining, and thoroughly enjoyable.

Absolutley loved this book! Not only had it added some must reads to my list but delightful humor from Hornby throughout...glad this one popped out of hiding on my bookshelf!

Very quick read.

Basically a collection of Nick Hornby's articles on the books he's reading, and general insights around reading.

His main premise sprinkled throughout is: read, read, read. But most importantly, read what you like. If a book is killing you, put it down and find another. Other insights are: don't let critics tell you if you like a book or not... if you like it it doesn't matter what the critics think. Also, popular doesn't mean bad, and critically acclaimed doesn't mean good!

He also highlights the books he has bought, and those he has read, and I find that he and I have similar likes and dislikes, so his essays are a great area to get selections on new books to read.

This book is really just a continuation of his previous non-fiction essay collection entitled The Polysyllabic Spree, which I also flew through and really enjoyed.

Very quick and interesting read.