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Average Customer Rating:

Worth reading even if, no, _especially_ if you aren't already familiar with the songs

Customer Rating:

If you liked Nick Hornby's novel High Fidelity, chances are that you'll also enjoy Songbook, his collection of essays on specific songs, originally written when he was a pop music critic for The New Yorker. Like Rob, the protagonist of High Fidelity, Hornby himself is a music fan who links particular songs to different events and stages of his life. His enthusiasm is genuine, and rather contagious, and his observations are thoughtful and funny. Furthermore, Hornby's taste in music is excellent, though, as he admits, he leans towards the contemplative, lyrical side of pop. I will be forever grateful to him for introducing me to the music of Rufus Wainwright. Songbook was originally released with a cd from McSweeney's Book, and that edition is long out of print, however, in this age of iTunes and downloadable music, you should have no problem compiling your own copy of what is, essentially, Hornby's mix tape for you, the reader. This paperback edition also has new material at the back, including Hornby's hilarious account of his attempt to broaden and update his taste by listening to Billboard's Top Ten Albums.

Passion and straightforwardness

Customer Rating:

I've recently missed my plane in Denver - this having been the last flight of the evening, I was sentenced to spend the night at the airport. Scouting the airport bookstore I bumped into the Songbook and snapped it from the shelf. It was a great choice. This book is about Hornby's passion for music. Sitting there, at the airport, reading about his son and music, I could feel my heart beat, my throat getting tighter, a little pressure in the back of my eye. It was sad and also strangely inspiring. Yet he also knows how to make you laugh. "Would it be possible to make love to the tune of 'Let's Get It On'?", he asks. I am genuinely grateful to Nick for singling several songs/bands I did not appreciate before - especially Aimee Mann and R. Wainwright. Some things I don't get. 'Thunder Road, for example. Rod Stewart. The J. Geils Band. Marah (cool but mediocre). A. Di Franco (another pissed off woman). Zimmerman, for all his poetic brilliance.... yet even in our disagreements, I find Hornby's affection for these artists and his passion for their creations, inspiring. Unlike me, the man knows how to always find something positive to say, and I liked this as well. For all his populism Hornby can be elegant when he so chooses. This is what he writes about Nick Cave's "No More Shall We Part: "[this album]..., like so much of Nick Cave's work, is sometimes as unwilling to please and as demanding of your attention as a small child. And yet this may explain why it is such a relief to enter its airless, occasionally overwrought world. In a time when even the angriest, most intimidating hip-hop or heavy metal seems designed to sell us something - a movie or a wrestling match or a lifestyle - Cave's music doesn't seem remotely interested in selling anything. That is to say, it's music made by an artist, in the old-fashioned, twentieth-century sense of the word." Can this be said more elegantly? More generously? With more respect? I don;t think so. Thanks, Nick.

by a kind and decent person

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In the introduction (and the essay "about" Your Love is The Place Where I Come from), Nick Hornby assured me that "what [I] have in [my] hand is the actual (i.e., natural, unforced, unpadded) shape of this particular book; it is.. an organic book, raised without force-feeding or the assistance of steroids" (or extra words to make the essays "regulation-length"). Had Nick kept his promise throughout Songbook, this would be a five-star review. But he hadn't. All but one of the Albums essays (the last one) feel a little padded; a little repetitive. Which is ironic since the cover of my copy of Songbook proudly proclaims "with 5 more essays!" Oh well. But despite this minor flaw (for even the slightly padded essays are very wonderful and brilliant and personal) this book is well worth buying whether or not you are a pop music fan. First of all, there is the quality of the writing itself. It is not often that you encounter a passage such as "...but I know Dylan fanatics, and they would not recognize me as one of them. (I have a friend who stays logged on to the Dylan Web site most of the day at work--as if the Web site were CNN and Dylan's career were the Middle East...)" or who describes England (or its absence) by asking us "Where's the larger-fuelled violence? Where's the lip or the self-deprecation, or the lethargy, or the irreverence? Where are the jokes? Where's the curry?" (Nick Hornby also has a few words to say about anti-Americanism: "'I'm so bored with the U.S.A', the Clash was singing .. every night.. and though we sang along with them, it wasn't true, not really. We were only bored with our obsession, and that's a different thing entirely.") And these examples bring me to the reason why someone who is not a pop fan should read this book. Because it is a book at least as much about our life (and because it is written in Nick Hornby's ever-personal prose it really does feel as though this is our life as opposed to his life) as it is about the music. Which is not to say that the music is not there. It is. Indeed, it is ever-present in these pages. After all, it is music that makes life bearable. But most of all, I recommend this book because Nick Hornby sounds like a very kind and decent human being--and it isn't often that you read a book that is so obviously written by such a person either.

Good for its intent	Customer Rating:
Hornby does exactly what he tells the reader he will do: he discusses why he likes certain songs. Now, if you don't share Hornby's taste in music, or if you are searching for well-formed aesthetic arguments, this book is not for you. But if you enjoy any of the songs in this book (which actually come from quite an array or genres) and are looking for a light read, this book is probably for you.

Takes A Stand For What Others May Indict As Un-Cool

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I'm a pop music whore. Yeah, you heard me. Some snobs might take offense, intuiting that this claim somehow reneges their otherwise impeccable knowledge of modern music. But not me, and not Nick Hornby, either. The author of About a Boy and High Fidelity, Hornby has always been known as a music author, this sentiment personified and cemented by his recent collection entitled Songbook. More accessible than Lester Bangs, Hornby strikes a balance between personal experience and critique; I commend him for his faith in pop music and taking a stand for what others may indict as un-cool. [...]