May 26, 2009

Reasons to Be Cheerful, Part 3

I have just finished reading Songbook by Nick Hornby. Nick Hornby is a rather successful English writer. You know how High Fidelity and About a Boy are movies? Well, they were books before that, and they were written by Nick Hornby. I have seen High Fidelity and I adore About a Boy, but I have yet to read those two books. Songbook is the first Nick Hornby book I have read. 

If you have seen or read High Fidelity, you know how important music is to this author. Songbook is a collection of essays about Nick Hornby's favorite songs. I know very few of the songs he speaks of, but this didn't keep me from enjoying the book. This is because Nick Hornby does not talk about the songs he loves only as pieces of music. What he does instead is he uses these songs to express his point of view on certain issues of life. He does not talk like a musical elitist and succeeds in remaining accessible. As I have said previously, this was my first encounter with Nick Hornby and I rather like his style of writing. Because he is a successful author, I expected his book to be an easy read. Songbook is not a difficult read, but Nick Hornby has a pretty extensive vocabulary and is a really precise writer. I will soon be reading his other books.

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