I was hoping to post on interesting things during the nearly month-long hiatus between now and the last post, but for several reasons I did not; now, there are several reasons to post once again:
1. I just picked up Nick Hornby's new book
Shakespeare Wrote For Money. It is the third collection of his articles for
The Believer, an American arts magazine (and published by McSweeney's). He is interesting and colloquial and I feel that my life would be enriched by having a beer with him, mostly because I am convinced that he feels the same way about me. The book reads like a memoir, a memoir through books, as it were, and has created a wonderful segue to the next reason for posting after such an absence.
2. Through Hornby's new book I picked up his first volume of articles,
The Polysyllabic Spree, which led me to a Google search of Gregory Corso's poem "Marriage" (a quirky poem which can be found
here) which led me to an interesting lit blog called
Literary Kicks. Literary Kicks is a lit blog - possibly the first - which I intend to read on a semi-regular basis. Which leads me to my next reason for posting.
3. Through Literary Kicks, I read
a review of
a review of Azar Nafisi's new memoir
Things I've Been Silent About. This lead me to the review itself, which made me want to read the book, which reminded me that I was already reading book of hers,
Reading Lolita in Tehran, which is subtitled "A memoir in books," leading you, dear reader, back to Nick Hornby, who reveals himself ever so slightly in each of his
Believer articles about the books he's bought and read each month. Which, of course, leads me to the next reason for posting.
4. Nick Hornby is a good writer because he makes other people think they're good writers, too. His opinions are my opinions, written a thousand times better, but nevertheless leads me to thinking that I can write my own opinions just as good. And so, in my mind, this post is written as well as Hornby's assessment of his brother-in-law's new book. At this point, Bonnie calls from the other room, "you're a weirdo". In my mind, however, I am triumphant. Now to do just as brilliant a job on the dishes.
I came across another Hornby groupie today - it seems that everyone loves Nick Hornby's Shakespeare Wrote For Money. As a result, I went back to my review of Nick Hornby, thinking that I could do a proper review of the book. The previous post really is more of an unabashed book crush. However, the only words available to me were "Yes!" and "Bonnie, I'm going out to buy some books. I'll be back in a few hours." Which is why I liked the review from Things Mean A Lot: "[H]is reading philosophy is pretty much the same as mine... [w]hich actually makes it harder to write about this book, because I’m tempted to just post 40 passages with a few comments like “Yes!”, “Exactly!”, “Go Nick!” or “Bwahahaha” scattered here and there." It's funny because it's true. Go get this book so that you either a) know what I'm talking about or b) don't have to listen to me prattle on about Nick Hornby.
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