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52 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Brief History of One Author's Reading Habits, December 11, 2004
I always enjoy it when, during interviews, journalists will mention something that their subject is reading, watching or listening to. An early Rolling Stone profile of R.E.M., for example, once mentioned that Peter Buck was buying a copy of a book by Jim Carroll, which pointed me the way to "The Basketball Diaries," a book that warped my then-young mind like a breath of fresh airplane glue.
I'm also a big fan of Nick Hornby's writing, so "The Polysyllabic Spree" is double the pleasure for me because it's a series of articles he wrote for "The Believer," chronicling his reading habits for the better part of a year.
In his typical conversational style, Hornby simply lays out his likes and dislikes, offering the reader potential listings for their own reading lists.
I'm an avid but severely undisciplined reader and was heartened to read that even a bestselling author sometimes sets aside a great novel in favor of a football game.
Just as "Songbook" was Hornby's meditation on music and life and living, "The Polysyllabic Spree" is a quick (I would contend *too* quick) and friendly tour of his bookshelf. It's also one that's rich enough to make the reader wish he'd go on and wax rhapsodic about, for example, what movies he's into these days or what TV shows he's digging -- that's the mark of a truly apt critic and writer.
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37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You can't not like him, February 1, 2005
I am attracted to books that discuss the author's reading and ideas about it and inevitably I get so far and wonder, why aren't I out there reading for myself instead of holding this person's hand? Not so with this, which is over far too soon. Hornby, riffing about his own reading, his life, his outlook, is holding the reader's hand.
The title would suggest a word riot, which THE POLYSYLLABIC SPREE is, but it is also the name Hornby puts to the murkily protean powers that be at "The Believer Magazine" where the book was born in monthly columns. Each month's chapter begins like an entry in Bridget Jones's Diary, books bought, books actually read, then leaps off into what happened, what he actually read, what he thought about it, how it connects (and sometimes does not, like when one's football team is on the television) to life. Hornby is very funny, and also very serious. He is also full of contagious, unabashed wonder. He is quick to skewer pretension or gratuitous content. His style is highly caffeinated and raspy from nicotine, hilariously hyperbolic one moment, piercingly specific the next. He is willing to say he is wrong or doesn't know. He keeps it all about our mutual love of reading, but divulges other insights along the way, like what it's like to be the dad of an autistic child, to become a father for the third time, to try unsuccessfully to quit smoking, to be a writer amongst all the reading, the parenting and everything else going on.
The proceeds of this book go to charity. How can you not like this guy?
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Spree de Bookishness!, January 21, 2005
Like Hornby I end up buying more books than I read - a lot more. And every time I see those shelves of unread books I'm hit with two emotions simultaneously. First, I admire the condition and selection of my books and then I feel like a deadbeat parent who's long neglected one's children. I suppose joy and sorrow have never meshed so well in a unified whole.
And Hornby presents similar feelings not too mysterious regarding his lack of discipline in consuming his books. He writes, "I certainly 'intend' to read all of them, more or less. My 'intentions' are good. Anyway, it's my money. And I'll bet you do it, too."
Additionally, I like the fact that Hornby is a discerning reader who searches for the `mesmerizing books'. These are the ones Hornby finds worthy of the hunt - those that will make you "walk into a lamp-post" while reading them.
Hornby's wit and caustic humor make this an entertaining read for the bibliophile, or for anyone aspiring to own more books than days left to live.
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