Hornby is an entertainingly unpretentious critic; any reader would come away with a handful of book recommendations they’d...
The rock-obsessed novelist confesses his idiosyncratic reading habits in this fourth collection of columns written for the Believer.
Critics tend to write reviews as if in a bubble, rarely acknowledging the ways the world can intrude on their reading and comprehension. The charm of Hornby’s (Juliet, Naked, 2009, etc.) “Stuff I’ve Been Reading” column is his candor about the messy intersection of living and reading. One column opens with his two young children demanding his attention as he struggles to finish Nicholson Baker’s novel The Anthologist; in another, he points out how a trusted recommendation led him to Don Carpenter’s obscure 1966 noir, Hard Rain Falling. That intimate perspective makes this book read more like a set of personal essays than book reviews, but he still delivers some funny and clear-eyed insights on writing. He demolishes the sexism of John Updike’s Marry Me by calling out the preposterousness of its dialogue, and writing about Colm Tóibín’s novel Brooklyn gives him the opportunity to thoughtfully consider the pleasures of rereading and the distinctions between screenwriting and writing novels. Hornby’s tastes often match those of the Believer audience’s, which prefers contemporary fiction and hipper nonfiction, but he roves widely, devouring Muriel Spark and Charles Dickens along with David Kynaston’s dense history Austerity Britain and a biography of Preston Sturges. Hornby’s reading life is pleasantly experimental, and though he softens his disappointments for the no-snark-allowed Believer, he’s at his most entertaining when he falls in love by accident with a book, as with Sarah Bakewell’s Montaigne biography, How to Live.
Hornby is an entertainingly unpretentious critic; any reader would come away with a handful of book recommendations they’d be eager to check out.Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-938073-05-2
Page Count: 200
Publisher: McSweeney’s
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2012
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
