Yesterday afternoon I was cleaning up my bookshelves, and I took a moment and looked at my shelf of Nick Hornby books, as one does: his novels (except the latest, Funny Girl, which I’ve not picked up), his screenplay for An Education, his book on music, even some of the Polysymphonic Spree books. As I … Continue reading A Long Way Down
Tag: Nick-Hornby
I saw this on Facebook a few days ago, meant to answer it, and got sidetracked into other things. That happens. The rules: Don’t take too long to think about it. List 15 authors (poets and comic writers included) who have influenced you and who will always stick with you. List the first 15 you … Continue reading Fifteen Influential Authors
My friend Julio Angel Ortiz tagged me with this on Facebook: The Rules: Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors (poets included) who’ve influenced you and that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Try to tag at least fifteen friends, … Continue reading On 15 Influential Authors
A week ago, I read Nick Hornby’s screenplay for An Education, the new film starring Carey Mulligan and Peter Saarsgard. I liked it, I was entertained by the screenplay, and I’m looking forward to seeing the film at some nebulous point in the future, and… Well, there’s a but. The “but” is that it suffers … Continue reading More on Some Reading and Writing
I’m doing NaNoWriMo this year. Sort of. National Novel Writing Month is a bit of literary insanity where people of all literary skill levels try to write 50,000 words in a single month. Specifically, the month of November. I’m not planning on using the month to break ground on a new novel. I’m going to … Continue reading On Writing and Reading
I stopped by Amazon today, to check on the status of an order. Normally, I don’t look at the recommendations on the first page, though it did amuse me that Amazon was recommending that I buy a copy of Grand Designs, especially as I wrote the first story in the volume. 🙂 Today, however, I … Continue reading On Nick Hornby’s An Education
Phonogram: The Singles Club #1 Image Comics Written by Kieran Gillen Art by Jamie McKelvie & Others A year and a half ago Image Comics published an interesting six-issue series entitled Phonogram. The story of David Kohl, a phonomancer (that is, a magician that works through music), Phonogram could perhaps be best described as Hellblazer … Continue reading On Things I’ve Been Reading
I started thinking today of a passage in Nick Hornby's novel About a Boy, when Will spends Christmas day with Marcus and Fiona: Clive gave Fiona a Nick Drake cassette, and though Clive did not know about the hospital business, as far as Will was aware, there still seemed to be something weird about him … Continue reading On Music Matching the Mood
I went with my sister a few days ago to see the new film Fever Pitch, based loosely on Nick Hornby’s memoir of his love affair with the London soccer team Arsenal. It was filmed once before, adapted by Hornby himself, and starred Colin Firth. The new version stars Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore, and … Continue reading On Fever Pitch
America needs you, Al Leiter. The FOX broadcasting team of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver just isn’t the same without you there. Former Cubs third basemen Mark Bellhorn and Bill Mueller are doing well for themselves. Why does FOX keep using the music from Requiem for a Dream to promote their football, NASCAR, and baseball … Continue reading Random World Series Thoughts
I noticed today in Entertainment Weekly a little blurb about Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon looking at Fever Pitch as a possible film vehicle. My question is, Why? No, the Colin Firth/Ruth Gemmell film isn’t particularly well known, but it’s adequate, it hits its notes, and it’s, well, English. I’m having a hard time picturing … Continue reading Fever Pitch
Nick Hornby, author of High Fidelity and About a Boy, released recently through McSweeney’s Books a book entitled simply Songbook. This is, like Fever Pitch, strictly non-fiction, a look at some of the songs that Hornby, a former music critic, enjoys, and includes a CD of several of the songs essayed in the book. Just … Continue reading New Nick Hornby