also by nick hornby
Fever Pitch
High Fidelity
About a Boy
Speaking with the Angel (editor)
How to Be Good
Songbook
The Polysyllabic Spree
A Long Way Down
Housekeeping vs. the Dirt
Slam
An Education
Juliet, Naked
Shakespeare Wrote for Money
More Baths Less Talking
a division of
MCSWEENEY’S
849 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
Copyright © 2003–2013 Nick Hornby
Cover design by Dan McKinley
Cover illustration by Daniel Fishel
All rights reserved, including right of reproduction in whole or part in any form.
These pieces appeared between September 2003 and June 2013 in the Believer magazine.
e-ISBN: 978-1-944211-15-8
Contents
Introduction: A Note from Jess Walter
September 2003
Some ground rules; predictions for a baby’s future employment; the opinions of grown-up critics; Legally Blonde
October 2003
The embodiment of a cultural obsession; re-reading in the face of mortality; empty threats of violence
November 2003
Unfinished, abandoned, abandoned, unfinished; the appearance of the Polysyllabic Spree; a zealous gleam
November 2003 / January 2004
Clarification about lost Victorian classics; overrated and peripheral skills; living with an autistic child; advice on smoking
February 2004
A modest celebration; the pram in the hall; in praise of the vernacular; jokes about commas; a fearful bashing
March 2004
Plans for a carcass; Cultural Fantasy Boxing League; an effort to get back on course; the young Flaubert
April 2004
Utter rubbish; a truth bent out of shape; unkind words about Amazon reviewers; upcoming Dickensian nutrition
May 2004
The secret of good writing; a guy who shouts “Goroo!” a lot; a long, lank skeleton hand; drippy Dora’s bloody dog
June 2004
The Croatian sex lady; the way middle-class people spend their time; a pregnancy scare; the support net; when Fischer played Spassky
July 2004
A visually uninteresting family tree; nipples not left alone; a taste for hopelessly bleak Eastern European humor
August 2004
A new baby; consumer fear; the appeal of the reappearing hero; the fourth-worst night of your life; a very pithy suicide note
September 2004
The Jesuit thing; several mistakes; finger-steepling and sharks in the same book; a new best friend
October 2004
Sex with cousins; Yorkshiremen; some clever-dick reviewer; the particularities of English Marxists
November 2004
Presumptions regarding cricket; Chekhov’s quotidian life; advice that holds good even now; a lovely little mongrel doggie
Nick Hornby’s Preface to the Second Column Collection, Housekeeping vs. The Dirt (2006)
Nick Hornby on what he’s learned about reading from the Polysyllabic Spree, of all people
February 2005
The story so far; the Kingston Trio in curious company; Islington dinner parties; a totally original sentence
March 2005
Weasel words; a thoughtful and engaging website; the inevitable Incredibles cash-ins; an elite cabal; Bob the astronaut
April 2005
Ednit; a quease-inducing trend; a spoiler alert; the only problem with the Labour government; Gogol’s shoes
May 2005
Surprising action in Borders; respective tastes in bird books; some things that have the mucus; Greil Marcus on the Pet Shop Boys
June / July 2005
An excruciating purchase; a perfect black-body sphere; the announcement of the theme of the month
August 2005
Rules made by pompous twits; an astonishing hush; ongoing disciplinary troubles; a surprisingly juicy book
September 2005
Clearing up a few things; dismal brevity; an interesting philosophical debate; bullishness and self-aggrandizement
October 2005
Shame; the Holy Grail of this column found; some very specific pomposities; the ways in which a man can kid himself
November 2005
A question of comic judgment; attractive Kryptonite ashtrays; impatience with literary fiction; gay abandon
February 2006
A lot of stuff about farting and wanking; Major Reading Experiences; Jay Gatsbergen and David Copperbottom
March 2006
A new tradition; Puff Diddle; jolly Ukrainian songs; defining the beginning of sexual intercourse; our impending death
April 2006
Comparisons with Nikki Sixx; sea-creature combos; the price of egg burritos in America; use of the first-person plural
May 2006
Notes on a shelving system; the English equivalent of Oprah; musings on a lunar module; unintentional comic élan
June / July 2006
A very grim month; brotherhood on the road; histrionics from Abraham Lincoln; Arsenal makes the semifinals
August 2006