01-21-2009, 02:24 PM
You might know the name Nick Hornby if you watched the credits for "About a Boy", the Hugh Grant film. Nick Hornby wrote the original book upon which the movie was base. But that's not why I bought this book.
The Polysyllabic Spree is a collection of book reviews printed in the Believer Magazine. The Pollysyllabic Spree is the term Hornby gives to the people at the Believer in all their white robed finery. I came across his name when I was hunting for more books by Sarah Vowell who wrote a really good book about the early settlers in Massachusetts(review coming almost immediately after this one). She wrote an introduction for a later collection of his reviews called "Housework vs. The Dirt" Which probably still isn't enough to make you want to read the book. But in the blurb he said he was going to list all the books he bought every month and compare that to the ones he actually read. And that got me. I buy a lot more books than I read and I always feel bad about those volumes languishing on the shelf. Here was somebody doing the same. Still not a great reason to get the book, but it's what got me.
It's not reviews of the current hot novels by Grisham or King, but literary works. He's reading the letters of Chekov or David Copperfield or Hayden Caulfield. His essays are wide ranging from rants about his favorite football club, Arsenal to how he was dissed by his brother in law when they were on vacation and his brother in law spotted somebody reading one of Hornby's books by the pool.
I didn't know most of the books he reviewed, but how he reviewed them was greatly entertaining. You can feel his deep affection for book buying and book reading. And it did make me want to go seek out books I probably wouldn't have otherwise.
From the Polysyllabic Spree:
[important]"Books are, lets face it, better than everything else. If we played cultural Fantasy Boxing League, and made books go fifteen rounds in the ring against the best that any other art form had to offer, then books would win pretty much every time. Go on, try it. The Magic Flute vs. Middlermarch? Middlemarch in six. The last Supper vs. Crime and Punishment? Fyodor on points. See? I mean, I don't know how scientific this is, but if feels like the novels are walking it. You might get the occasional exception-Blond on Blonde might mash up the Old Curiosity Shop, say , and I wouldn't give much for Pale Fire's chances against Citizen Kane. And every now and then you'd get a shock, because that happens in sport, so Back to the Future III might land a lucky punch on Rabbit, Run; but I'm still backing literature twenty-nine times out of thirty"[/important]
The Polysyllabic Spree is a collection of book reviews printed in the Believer Magazine. The Pollysyllabic Spree is the term Hornby gives to the people at the Believer in all their white robed finery. I came across his name when I was hunting for more books by Sarah Vowell who wrote a really good book about the early settlers in Massachusetts(review coming almost immediately after this one). She wrote an introduction for a later collection of his reviews called "Housework vs. The Dirt" Which probably still isn't enough to make you want to read the book. But in the blurb he said he was going to list all the books he bought every month and compare that to the ones he actually read. And that got me. I buy a lot more books than I read and I always feel bad about those volumes languishing on the shelf. Here was somebody doing the same. Still not a great reason to get the book, but it's what got me.
It's not reviews of the current hot novels by Grisham or King, but literary works. He's reading the letters of Chekov or David Copperfield or Hayden Caulfield. His essays are wide ranging from rants about his favorite football club, Arsenal to how he was dissed by his brother in law when they were on vacation and his brother in law spotted somebody reading one of Hornby's books by the pool.
I didn't know most of the books he reviewed, but how he reviewed them was greatly entertaining. You can feel his deep affection for book buying and book reading. And it did make me want to go seek out books I probably wouldn't have otherwise.
From the Polysyllabic Spree:
[important]"Books are, lets face it, better than everything else. If we played cultural Fantasy Boxing League, and made books go fifteen rounds in the ring against the best that any other art form had to offer, then books would win pretty much every time. Go on, try it. The Magic Flute vs. Middlermarch? Middlemarch in six. The last Supper vs. Crime and Punishment? Fyodor on points. See? I mean, I don't know how scientific this is, but if feels like the novels are walking it. You might get the occasional exception-Blond on Blonde might mash up the Old Curiosity Shop, say , and I wouldn't give much for Pale Fire's chances against Citizen Kane. And every now and then you'd get a shock, because that happens in sport, so Back to the Future III might land a lucky punch on Rabbit, Run; but I'm still backing literature twenty-nine times out of thirty"[/important]
So much for the flickr badge idea. Dammit
