The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
Pondering this collection of Hornby’s columns for the Believer, I felt skeptical. Hornby’s books are like 80s music: Comforting, enjoyable, but rarely substantial. But I devoured this book in one sitting on an airplane (and then re-read the extensive select bits), and fell in love with his non sequitur witticisms weaved together with unfettered opinions about the books he’s read or purchased. He is the Lester Bangs of literary criticism. A choice excerpt: Even if you love movies and music as much as you do books, it’s still, in any given four week period, way, way more likely you’ll find a great book you haven’t read than a great movie you haven’t seen, or a great album you haven’t heard: the assiduous consumer will eventually exhaust movies and music.
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
Knowing full well that this 2000 novel was about angst-ridden college students in love, I don’t know why I started reading it. And after an overly-profound first chapter in which the narrator Toru frolics in a meadow with his adored Naoko, I don’t know why I kept reading. And when I finished reading this sad but strangely uplifting story, I don’t know why I liked it: It was predictable and at times boring. Murakami’s prose is compelling; even though I ceased to care what happened, it was still a good read.
Snobs by Julian Fellowes
A savory guilty pleasure. A beautiful young woman marries her way into the highest echelon of British society and purposely mucks it all up. Some of the pleasurable guiltiness was assuaged by the fact that Fellowes, who wrote Gosford Park, narrates with full knowledge of the absurd rules of aristocratic life. Couldn’t put it down.
The Prone Gunman by Jean-Patrick Manchette
Even people who hate reading will love this book about a French hitman who must shoot his way to a new career. It’s 150 pages of sparse, clean, direct prose that will explode in your brain like a hollow bullet filled with pulpy fiction. Manchette’s ironic and sexy story hits the target again and again.
Old School by Tobias Wolff
Set at an elite boy’s New England prep school in the 1960s and told from the point of view of student who aspires to be a famous writer, this book was boring. The unnamed student is desperate to win a yearly contest in order to have a private audience with one of the luminous visiting writers to the school, who include Robert Frost, Ernest Hemingway, and Ayn Rand. Though the writing was clean and these cameos are entertaining, I was aggravated by the pointlessness of this self-indulgent book that is ultimately about teen angst and rich brats.
