Housekeeping vs. The Dirt by Nick Hornby


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I picked this book off the "to read" pile because I thought "hey, it's a quick read - Nick Hornby and 150 pages or so." Like Nick Hornby I do have a large pile of books I want to read and I'm constantly buying them faster than I can get through them. So it was ironic that I chose this book because it's short; it's really a gateway book- book reviews of everything he's read in an 18 month period and of course I now have a long list of more books I want to buy and read! How counterproductive!
I have to say I always enjoy a book by Hornby, even though they're not all as stellar as High Fidelity. He's always a human and realistic writer, so realistic in fact that in the forward for this book he argues: "we have got it into our heads that books should be hard work, and that unless they're hard work they're not doing us any good . . . please, if you're reading a book that's killing you, put it down and read something else . . . Your failure to enjoy a highly rated novel doesn't mean you're dim." He questions what makes a book "literature" and then what can make it a classic. But most importantly, he reminds us that he, a writer, is really just a reader like us. In fact, he gives us a few short chapters and snippets from some of his favorite recent reads.
In short, reading this isn't like reading a New York Times book review (not that I tend to do that anyway); it's more like having a conversation, a really smart conversation, with a friend about what books he's been reading. And it tells another story for him, which is more the story of his own life than any of his fictional narratives. I can't wait to read Juliet, Naked!

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