The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby

Today I finished reading The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby. It’s a good book and I recommend it.

The Polysyllabic Spree is a collection of columns Nick Hornby wrote for the Believer magazine. The column he writes for them is about books he read, but it’s also a lot about the experience of reading and not as much about the content of books. It’s a nice read, even if you – like me – haven’t read or even heard of most of the books Hornby writes about. And when the occasional book I knew as well came up, it seems he mentioned it only briefly and didn’t explain much why he liked it. (He doesn’t talk about the books he didn’t like, since the editors of the Believer supposedly didn’t want him to.) Still, it was a good read and the book is sweet and humorous and recommendable.

If you don’t know who Hornby is, you might want to start with one of his fiction books instead of this, like High Fidelity or A Long Way Down, but if you like to read about reading books… this one may just be the one for you!

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