My final book of 2014 was about... books. I've never seen an issue of Believer magazine, so I wasn't familiar with Hornby's "Stuff I've Been Reading Column." But I found a reference to it somewhere online, and as I'm a fan of books about reading, and have enjoyed some of Hornby's other works, got busy with ten years' worth of his monthly columns.
As much as I enjoyed his sense of humor, I think I would have enjoyed the columns more had I read them in real time, rather than a decade at one go. And to be fair, his reading choices the last couple of years were pretty odd. He's only a couple of years older than I, so I worry that I'll suddenly start reading obscure books about even more obscure topics. (Some people already believe I do, so there you have it.)
2014 wasn't a bad year for reading. 71 books, although some of them were pretty lightweight. I'm being a little more conscious of my choices for 2015. The reading plan is ambitious, and we'll see after a month or two if my travel schedule obliterates the plan like it has everything else in my life the last five years.
from the publisher: "How often do you begin reading a book that makes you--immediately, urgently, desperately--want to read more books?" (Booklist) Nick Hornby has managed to write such a book in this hilarious, insightful, and infectious volume. Ten Years in the Tub chronicles Hornby's journey through a decade's worth of books, as related in his wildly popular Believer column "Stuff I've Been Reading."
This collection is a one-way ticket into the mind of one of the most beloved contemporary writers on his favorite pastime, but it's also a meditation on what Céline Dion can teach us about ourselves, a warning about how John Updike can ruin our sex lives, and a recommendation for the way Body Shop Vanilla Shower Gel can add excitement to our days. This "decade-long addiction for many ... makes standing in line at the bank a blessed interval for snorting another page" (New York Times Book Review).
As much as I enjoyed his sense of humor, I think I would have enjoyed the columns more had I read them in real time, rather than a decade at one go. And to be fair, his reading choices the last couple of years were pretty odd. He's only a couple of years older than I, so I worry that I'll suddenly start reading obscure books about even more obscure topics. (Some people already believe I do, so there you have it.)
2014 wasn't a bad year for reading. 71 books, although some of them were pretty lightweight. I'm being a little more conscious of my choices for 2015. The reading plan is ambitious, and we'll see after a month or two if my travel schedule obliterates the plan like it has everything else in my life the last five years.
from the publisher: "How often do you begin reading a book that makes you--immediately, urgently, desperately--want to read more books?" (Booklist) Nick Hornby has managed to write such a book in this hilarious, insightful, and infectious volume. Ten Years in the Tub chronicles Hornby's journey through a decade's worth of books, as related in his wildly popular Believer column "Stuff I've Been Reading."
This collection is a one-way ticket into the mind of one of the most beloved contemporary writers on his favorite pastime, but it's also a meditation on what Céline Dion can teach us about ourselves, a warning about how John Updike can ruin our sex lives, and a recommendation for the way Body Shop Vanilla Shower Gel can add excitement to our days. This "decade-long addiction for many ... makes standing in line at the bank a blessed interval for snorting another page" (New York Times Book Review).
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