Cannonball - Book 6

The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby

 

This is not the book I was planning to read next (I know that I said that is was the book I was planning to read next, but I didn't write that last post until after I had changed my mind.)    I read the first 50 or so pages of The Big Rewind by Nathan Rabin, and liked it, but I was not in a good enough mood this weekend to read a memoir about depression and so I moved on.  This book was the perfect thing to read instead, for several reasons.  The two most important being that: a) it is short and relatively light, and b) it is pretty inspiring, reading-wise.

Short is good, because, even though I like that Bryson book, it was kind of a slog.  And up next is The Sound and the Fury, another slog.  I needed a non-slog in between to gain confidence in my ability to read more than two pages at a time without falling asleep or putting the book down to watch an episode of Deadwood*.  Once, my dad and I were talking about the reasons everyone loves The Time Traveler's Wife so much and dad said he thought it's because Audrey Niffinegger's prose is friendly.  I think friendly might be the perfect way to describe Hornby's style.  It is inviting, and that makes it easy to read.  The knowledge that there are more of Hornby's words on page after page is comforting as opposed to daunting.  Nick Hornby is lovely company.

Hornby's Believer columns have an improbable dual effect:  they inspire me to read more and to read better books, but do so without making me feel guilty about the books I do read or the books that I haven't read. Does that make any sense?  The disparities between Hornby's lists of Books Bought and Books Read make me feel better about all of the un-read books on my bookshelf (or, the book section of my floor, as is the case in my Ottawa bedroom.)  His admission that he finds books boring, even though they are the most reliably satisfying cultural experiences he has, was incredibly comforting also.  Finally someone admits the truth!  Out of all the things that I love, I think I love the books that I love best of all, but reading is hard work.  Hornby remindes me that it is worth it.  He makes me want to put the time in to Dickens and Checkov and Tobias Wolff.  He even makes me think that reading a little poetry now and then would not be unreasonable.  But I have to get through Faulkner first.


Page count: 147
Up next: The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner








*I had sort of been putting off watching Deadwood for a long time.  I knew that I would have to watch it eventually, because it is the kind of show that anyone who loves and watches as much television as I do has to read eventually, but I was kind of avoiding it because it seemed so unpleasant.  But I watched the pilot this weekend in a fit of procrastination and I haven't been able to stop.  It is brilliant and hilarious and smart and sad and the swearing in it is inspired.  Sometimes I have to skip the particularly violent parts because I am a wimp but for the most part it Deadwood is exceedingly watchable.