About a Boy

In September 2003, novelist Nick Hornby started writing a column for the Believer called Stuff I’ve Been Reading. The column reported on his experiences as a reader: which books he had bought in the previous month, which ones he had read, what he thought about the books he had read and which books he had started but abandoned. In many ways, Stuff I’ve Been Reading looked like a traditional book review. Each instalment singled out titles that Hornby had especially liked and described their contents, enlivened with Hornby's distinctive wit. To be sure, some of the column's features were a little unconventional. In keeping with the Believer policy of allowing only “acid-free literary criticism,” for instance, Hornby refrained from attacking books he didn't like, and discussed only those about which he had something good to say. Still, in 2003, a casual reader might not have noticed anything distinctive about Stuff I’ve Been Reading. It looked like any number of other columns about literary matters.

But as the months and years passed, Stuff I’ve Been Reading turned into something much more interesting. What began as a series of reports on particular books became a chronicle of Hornby's life as a reader. Christmases were celebrated; Hornby got married; London was shaken by riots; children were born. All of these events interacted with Hornby's reading in complex ways, and he wrote frankly, and sometimes movingly, about how reading did and didn't fit into the rest of his life. As the columns piled up— eventually being reprinted in a series of books— Hornby's attitude toward reading seemed to shift. In the earliest installments, he sees his reading life as structured by obligations: he thinks there are books he ought to be reading even though he doesn't really want to, authors he should feel guilty for ignoring even though he's pretty sure he won't like them. But with time, Hornby comes to reject the very idea of letting duty intrude on his reading. His tastes also shift, partly as a result of conscious steering. He grows less and less patient with certain kinds of literary fiction, and more and more willing to say so.