The Polysyllabic Spree

When I got home from work on Friday I realized that I had left my current book on my desk at work. There were several minutes of panicking - a whole weekend and me without my book! - which culminated in Nick buying a Kindle copy of the damn thing so that I would RELAX. But a Kindle copy isn't MY copy, and so I made life worth living again by remembering that I had an unread copy of “The Polysyllabic Spree”, which is just the right length for a weekend. It turns out that it's also fun and witty, always great qualities to find in your weekend book. I added 3 books to my Goodreads to-read list based solely on his reviews in “The Polysyllabic Spree”, so in the near future we'll see how much my taste and Nick Hornby's align.

This thin book is simply a collection of monthly articles that Nick Hornby wrote for Believer magazine which detailed his books bought, books read and thoughts on the same. Hornby's an interesting, amusing guy but his selection of books leaves a LOT to be desired. He seems partial to obscure biographies and collections of letters. He accidentally discovered reading Dennis Lehane but that seems to be as close as he gets to popular fiction. He regards Charles Dickens as the best writer so I suspect the only cross-over we have in reading is Oliver Twist (the only Dickens I've read) and four of his own novels. He buys pretty obsessively, moreso than me, which is a relief of sorts.

I read some of these in the actual issues of The Believer but that was years ago. Sat down and read the whole thing in an afternoon. It's been a while since a book has made me laugh out loud.