Most Popular Books by Nick Hornby

A wise, hilarious novel from the beloved, award-winning author of Dickens and Prince, Funny Girl and High Fidelity Will Freeman may have discovered the key to dating success: If the simple fact that they were single mothers meant that gorgeous women – women who would not ordinarily look twice a Will – might not only be willing, but enthusiastic about dating him, then he was really onto something. Single mothers – bright, attractive, available women – thousands of them, were all over London. He just had to find them. SPAT: Single Parents – Alone Together. It was a brilliant plan. And Will wasn’t going to let the fact that he didn’t have a child himself hold him back. A fictional two-year-old named Ned wouldn’t be the first thing he’d invented. And it seems to go quite well at first, until he meets an actual twelve-year-old named Marcus, who is more than Will bargained for…

At the age of fifteen, Sam Jones''s girlfriend Alicia gets pregnant and Sam''s life of skateboarding and daydreaming about Tony Hawk changes drastically, so Sam turns to Hawk''s autobiography for answers.

A wise, affecting novel from the beloved, award-winning author of Dickens and Prince, High Fidelity, and About A Boy. New York Times-bestselling author Nick Hornby mines the hearts and psyches of four lost souls who connect just when they''ve reached the end of the line. A Long Way Down is now a major motion picture from Magnolia Pictures starring Pierce Brosnan, Toni Collette, Aaron Paul, and Imogen Poots. Meet Martin, JJ, Jess, and Maureen. Four people who come together on New Year''s Eve: a former TV talk show host, a musician, a teenage girl, and a mother. Three are British, one is American. They encounter one another on the roof of Topper''s House, a London destination famous as the last stop for those ready to end their lives. In four distinct and riveting first-person voices, Nick Hornby tells a story of four individuals confronting the limits of choice, circumstance, and their own mortality. This is a tale of connections made and missed, punishing regrets, and the grace of second chances. Intense, hilarious, provocative, and moving, A Long Way Down is a novel about suicide that is, surprisingly, full of life.

From the bestselling author of About a Boy, A Long Way Down and Dickens and Prince, a wise and hilarious novel about love, heartbreak, and rock and roll. “I''ve always loved Nick Hornby, and the way he writes characters and the way he thinks. It''s funny and heartbreaking all at the same time.”—Zoë Kravitz Rob is a pop music junkie who runs his own semi-failing record store. His girlfriend, Laura, has just left him for the guy upstairs, and Rob is both miserable and relieved. After all, could he have spent his life with someone who has a bad record collection? Rob seeks refuge in the company of the offbeat clerks at his store, who endlessly review their top five films; top five Elvis Costello songs; top five episodes of Cheers. Rob tries dating a singer, but maybe it’s just that he’s always wanted to sleep with someone who has a record contract. Then he sees Laura again. And Rob begins to think that life with kids, marriage, barbecues, and soft rock CDs might not be so bad.

“Whether you are interested in football or not, this is tears-running-down-your-face funny, read-bits-out-loud-to-complete-strangers funny, but also highly perceptive and honest about Hornby’s obsession and the state of the game.” —GQ A brilliant memoir from the beloved, bestselling author of Dickens and Prince, Funny Girl, and High Fidelity. In America, it is soccer. But in Great Britain, it is the real football. No pads, no prayers, no prisoners. And that’s before the players even take the field. Nick Hornby has been a football fan since the moment he was conceived. Call it predestiny. Or call it preschool. Fever Pitch is his tribute to a lifelong obsession. Part autobiography, part comedy, part incisive analysis of insanity, Hornby’s award-winning memoir captures the fever pitch of fandom—its agony and ecstasy, its community, its defining role in thousands of young men’s coming-of-age stories. Fever Pitch is one for the home team. But above all, it is one for everyone who knows what it really means to have a losing season.

“All I have to say about these songs is that I love them, and want to sing along to them, and force other people to listen to them, and get cross when these other people don’t like them as much as I do.” —Nick Hornby, from Songbook A wise and hilarious collection from the bestselling author of Dickens and Prince, Just Like You, Funny Girl and About a Boy. Songs, songwriters, and why and how they get under our skin… Songbook is Nick Hornby’s labor of love. A shrewd, funny, and completely unique collection of musings on pop music, why it’s good, what makes us listen and love it, and the ways in which it attaches itself to our lives—all with the beat of a perfectly mastered mix tape.

A wise and hilarious novel morality and what it means to be a "goof person" from the bestselling author of Dickens and Prince, Just Like you, Funny Girl and High Fidelity. A brutally truthful, compassionate novel about the heart, mind, and soul of a woman who, confronted by her husband’s sudden and extreme spiritual conversion, is forced to learn “how to be good”—whatever that means, and for better or worse… Katie Carr is a good person…sort of. For years her husband’s been selfish, sarcastic, and underemployed. But now David’s changed. He’s become a good person, too—really good. He’s found a spiritual leader. He has become kind, soft-spoken, and earnest. Katie isn’t sure if this is deeply felt conversion, a brain tumor—or David’s most brilliantly vicious manipulation yet. Because she’s finding it more and more difficult to live with David—and with herself.

“Read what you enjoy, not what bores you,” Nick Hornby tells us. That simple, liberating, and indispensable directive animates each installment of the celebrated critic and author’s monthly column in the Believer. In this delightful and never-musty tour of his reading life, Hornby tells us not just what to read, but how to read. Whether tackling a dismayingly bulky biography of Dickens while his children destroy something in the next room, or getting sucked into a serious assessment of Celine Dion during an intensely fought soccer match featuring his beloved Arsenal, or devouring an entire series of children’s books while on vacation, Hornby’s reviews are rich, witty, and occasionally madcap. These essays capture the joy and ire, the despair and exhilaration of the book-lover’s life, and will appeal equally to both monocle-wearing salonnieres and people, like him, who spend a lot of time thinking about Miley Cyrus’s next role.

”[A] charming, funny, touching, and relevant comedy.” —The Boston Globe “A provocative yet sweet romantic comedy.” —People, Best of Fall 2020 From the beloved author of Dickens and Prince, About A Boy, and High Fidelity, this warm, wise, highly entertaining twenty-first century love story is about what happens when the person who makes you happiest is someone you never expected Lucy used to handle her adult romantic life according to the script she’d been handed. She met a guy just like herself: same age, same background, same hopes and dreams; they got married and started a family. Too bad he made her miserable. Now, two decades later, she’s a nearly divorced, forty-one-year-old schoolteacher with two school-aged sons, and there is no script anymore. So when she meets Joseph, she isn’t exactly looking for love—she’s more in the market for a babysitter. Joseph is twenty-two, living at home with his mother, and working several jobs, including the butcher counter where he and Lucy meet. It’s not a match anyone one could have predicted. He’s of a different class, a different culture, and a different generation. But sometimes it turns out that the person who can make you happiest is the one you least expect, though it can take some maneuvering to see it through. Just Like You is a brilliantly observed, tender, but also brutally funny new novel that gets to the heart of what it means to fall surprisingly and headlong in love with the best possible person—someone you didn’t see coming.

Fourteen months of Hornby''s warm, incisive, and hilarious chronicles of the books he buys and the books he reads.In this latest collection of essays following ''The Polysyllabic Spree,'' critic and author Nick Hornby continues the feverish survey of his swollen bookshelves, offering a funny, intelligent, and unblinkered account of the stuff he''s been reading. Ranging from the middlebrow to the highbrow (with unrepenting dips into the lowbrow), Hornby''s dispatches from his nightstand table serve as useful guides to contemporary letters, with revelations on contemporary culture, the intellectual scene, and English football, in equal measure.

A brilliant novel about a woman determined to make a name for herself as a sitcom star in 1960''s London from the bestselling author of Dickens and Prince, High Fidelity and About a Boy Funny Girl is a lively account of the adventures of the intrepid young Sophie Straw as she navigates her transformation from provincial ingénue to television starlet amid a constellation of delightful characters. Insightful and humorous, Funny Girl does what Nick Hornby does best: endears us to a cast of characters who are funny if flawed, and forces us to examine ourselves in the process.

A new collection of nonfiction writing on culture from the bestselling author of High Fidelity and Dickens and Prince. Books, Movies, Rhythm, Blues brings together the best of Nick Hornby''s non-fiction pieces on film and tv, writers and painters and music, and including one exceptional fragment of autobiography. With subject matter ranging from the Sundance Festival to Abbey Road Studios, from P.G. Wodehouse to The West Wing, these are pieces that ‘were written for fun, or because I felt I had things to say and time to say them, or because the commissions were unusual and imaginative, or because … I was being asked to go somewhere I had never been before.’

“An ardent fan letter from Hornby that makes you want to re-read Great Expectations while listening to Sign o’ the Times.” —Vogue From the bestselling author of Just Like You, High Fidelity, and Fever Pitch, a short, warm, and entertaining book about art, creativity, and the unlikely similarities between Victorian novelist Charles Dickens and modern American rock star Prince Every so often, a pairing comes along that seems completely unlikely—until it’s not. Peanut butter and jelly, Dennis Rodman and Kim Jong Un, ducks and puppies, and now: Dickens and Prince. Equipped with a fan’s admiration and his trademark humor and wit, Nick Hornby invites us into his latest obsession: the cosmic link between two unlikely artists, geniuses in their own rights, spanning race, class, and centuries—each of whom electrified their different disciplines and whose legacy resounded far beyond their own time. When Prince’s 1987 record Sign o’ the Times was rereleased in 2020, the iconic album now came with dozens of songs that weren’t on the original— Prince was endlessly prolific, recording 102 songs in 1986 alone. In awe, Hornby began to wonder, Who else ever produced this much? Who else ever worked that way? He soon found his answer in Victorian novelist and social critic Charles Dickens, who died more than a hundred years before Prince began making music. Examining the two artists’ personal tragedies, social statuses, boundless productivity, and other parallels, both humorous and haunting, Hornby shows how these two unlikely men from different centuries “lit up the world.” In the process, he creates a lively, stimulating rumination on the creativity, flamboyance, discipline, and soul it takes to produce great art.

In these two stories from bestselling author Nick Hornby revelations are at hand. In "Not a Star", Lynn has always thought her son, Mark, was a little, well, unremarkable. Until the day a neighbor drops off a porn video at her house, with a note telling her to watch it. Turns out, Mark is rather remarkable in one specific area of his life (and anatomy). Lynn and her husband, Dave, don’t quite know what to think. The revelation of their son’s talent ripples through Lynn’s life as she alternately encounters humor, horror, and unexpected emotional reactions. What do you do in the face of impending doom? In "Otherwise, Pandemonium," you lose your virginity with the hottest girl in the Little Berkeley Big Band… Here, the world is a different place; the future is uncertain; the choices one makes are the only thing standing between a semblance of order or utter chaos. And the TV’s been acting funny. This is a story that makes you think and feel, and reminds us of the fleeting nature of time.

"How often do you begin reading a book that makes you—immediately, urgently, desperately—want to read more books?” (Booklist). Nick Hornby has managed to write just such a book in this hilarious, insightful, and infectious volume. Ten Years in the Tub chronicles Hornby''s journey through a decade’s worth of books, as related in his wildly popular Believer column “Stuff I’ve Been Reading.” Ten Years in the Tub is a one-way ticket into the mind of one of the most beloved contemporary writers on his favorite pastime, but it''s also a meditation on what Celine Dion can teach us about ourselves, a warning about how John Updike can ruin our sex lives, and a recommendation for the way Body Shop Vanilla Shower Gel can add excitement to our days. This "decade-long addiction for many... makes standing in line at the bank a blessed interval for snorting another page.” (the New York Times Book Review)

Speaking with the Angel is a collection of short stories, edited by Nick Hornby Hear the Prime Minister explain to the House why he did a runner from Greenford Park service station and hitched a lift with a fifteen-year-old girl, as imagined by Robert Harris. Listen to someone who has a small hostile creature in his room, as told by Roddy Doyle. Twelve voices, twelve completely new stories, narrated by twelve different characters. And all written by twelve of the most exciting and popular writers around: Robert Harris, Melissa Bank, Giles Smith, Patrick Marber, Colin Frith, Zadie Smith, Dave Eggers, Helen Fielding, Roddy Doyle, Irvine Welsh, John O''Farrell and Nick Hornby himself. This sparkling collection has been put together by bestselling novelist Nick Hornby, who also contributes an Introduction about TreeHouse, an organisation that offers a unique and pioneering approach to the education of children with autism. £1 will go to TreeHouse with every copy sold of Speaking with the Angel.

A heartbreaking, funny, and honest look inside of a marriage falling apart and the lengths a couple would go to in order to fix it from the bestselling author of Dickens and Prince, About a Boy and High Fidelity Now an Emmy award winning SundanceTV series starring Rosamund Pike and Chris O''Dowd Tom and Louise meet in a pub before their couple''s therapy appointment. Married for years, they thought they had a stable home life--until a recent incident pushed them to the brink. Going to therapy seemed like the perfect solution. But over drinks before their appointment, they begin to wonder: what if marriage is like a computer? What if you take it apart to see what''s in there, but then you''re left with a million pieces? Unfolding in the minutes before their weekly therapy sessions, the ten-chapter conversation that ensues is witty and moving, forcing them to look at their marriage--and, for the first time in a long time, at each other.

In his monthly accounts of what he''s read - along with what he may one day read - Nick Hornby explores everything from the classic to the graphic novel, as well as poems, plays, sports books and other kinds of non-fiction.

The final collection from Nick Hornby''s column "Stuff I''ve Been Reading" in the Believer magazine.

Forfatteren Nick Hornby reflekterer over 31 sange som har haft en betydning for ham eller bare har sat sig fast.

Stuff I''ve Been Reading by Nick Hornby - the bestselling novelist''s rich, witty and inspiring reading diary''Read what you enjoy, not what bores you,'' Nick Hornby tells us. And in this new collection of his columns from the Believer magazine he shows us how it''s done. From historical tomes to comic books, literary novels to children''s stories, political thrillers to travel writing, Stuff I''ve Been Reading details Nick''s thoughts and experiences on books by George Orwell, J.M. Barrie, Muriel Spark, Claire Tomalin, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Jennifer Egan, Ian McEwan, Cormac McCarthy and many, many more. This wonderfully entertaining journey in reading differs from all other reviews or critical appreciations - it takes into account the role that books actually play in our lives.This book, which is classic Hornby, confirms the novelist''s status as one of the world''s most exciting curators of culture. It will be loved by fans of About a Boy and High Fidelity, as well as readers of Will Self, Zadie Smith, Stewart Lee and Charlie Brooker.

A hilarious and true account of one man''s struggle with the monthly tide of the books he''s bought and the books he''s been meaning to read.

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING ETHAN HAWKE AND ROSE BYRNE From the beloved New York Times bestselling author, a quintessential Nick Hornby tale of music, superfandom, and the truths and lies we tell ourselves about life and love. Annie finds herself caught in the web of a relationship with Duncan, who adores Tucker Crowe, a reclusive singer-songwriter who vanished from the music scene years ago. As Annie''s love for Duncan fades, an unexpected email correspondence with Tucker sparks a connection between two searching souls. What happens when a washed-up musician looks for another chance? And miles away, a restless, childless woman looks for a change? Juliet, Naked is a powerfully engrossing, humblingly humorous novel about music, love, loneliness, and the struggle to live up to one’s promise.

Nick Hornby, author of the bestselling soccer classic Fever Pitch, offers an insightful account of an extraordinary sports season. Concentrating on a number of significant games in British soccer during the 2011–2012 season, Hornby chronicles the emotional, political, and societal highlights and woes that played out on the field. There were alleged racist clashes, revealing the deep cultural fissures still present in British life. There was a fairy-tale return for the legendary Thierry Henry, and the terrifying collapse of Bolton’s Fabrice Muamba, clinically dead for seventy-eight minutes after a heart attack. Throughout, Hornby delves into the impact of the economy on the beloved sport of Britain. As sheikhs and oligarchs buy and sell teams and players at astronomical financial levels, other teams are left behind to struggle with diminished talent. And as income inequality hits all-time highs worldwide, so it does in British soccer. It was a season of tumultuous incident and enormous entertainment, a season more glorious than most. By the end, in May 2012, fans of most clubs had been enthralled, appalled, depressed, elated, shocked, and enraged. Along the way, soccer had somehow managed to encompass politics, high finance, the law, and matters of life and death. Read all about it, and relive it, here.

"Contemporary American Fiction concentrates on a group of writers who have achieved prominence in the ''80s, and in particular those writers anthologized in Granta''s two highly influential collections, Dirty Realism and More Dirt. The book includes a major essay on Raymond Carver, arguably the most important literary figure of the decade; there is also a discussion of the work of Richard Ford and Tobias Wolff, friends of Carver, whose writing shows similar sensibilities." "The last decade has seen a revival of interest in the short story; special attention is paid here to the emerging group of women writers--Bobbie Ann Mason, Joy Williams, Jayne Anne Phillips and Elizabeth Tallent, among others--whose stories continue the tradition of Eudora Welty, Willa Cather and Flannery O''Connor." "This study is a wide-ranging and readable introduction to the American ''New Wave'' of writers, and contains interviews with some of the key figures. It will be of interest to anyone who has read and enjoyed the most vibrant writing to have come out of the U.S. for years."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Da "Tribunefeber" kom ut i England i 1992, ble boken umiddelbart en stor suksess. Nich Hornby skildrer det nærmest absurde følelsesmessige engasjementet knyttet til fotballsporten og favorittlaget Arsenal, et engasjement som domineres av gnagende uro og mismot, men som også innebærer stunder av jublende glede. Samtidig skriver han om barndommen, om det å vokse til, om maskulinitet, klasseskiller, sex og familieliv, og om vanskelighetene voksentilværelsen bringer med seg. Alt beskrevet med humor og ironi. Boken er nå også filmatisert med Colin Firth i hovedrollen. Hornbys første roman "High Fidelity - en roman om hjerte/smerte" kom på norsk i 1996.