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High Fidelityby Nick Hornby
Powells.com Staff PickIn the nineties, while Americans were looking to cloying John Gray to explain the differences between men and women, the Brits were having a much better time learning about the foibles of gender from two of their best satirists. Taken together, Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary and Nick Hornby's High Fidelity provide the most clearly drawn map of the murky terrain of gender at the turn of the millennium as we are likely to receive. But don't look here for elaborate theory. Though in fact intellectually sophisticated, these two books are first and foremost comedies, and have sold millions of copies worldwide primarily because they are so fun to read. In Bridget Jones, Fielding created a brilliant satire of the preoccupations of contemporary women, and in Rob Fleming, Nick Hornby created the perfect nineties Everyman. Rob is a music-compulsive. He owns and manages a barely surviving vintage record store and gets through difficult moments in life by re-categorizing his enormous record collection, making endless compilation tapes, or incessantly compiling pop culture lists: top-five Elvis Costello songs, top-five episodes of Cheers, top-five films, etc. But when Rob's longtime girlfriend leaves him for their neighbor, Rob is forced to re-examine the self-absorbed, uninspired priorities that have so far governed his life. That about sums up the plot. But it wasn't plot that distinguished High Fidelity. Rather, it was Hornby's now-familiar blend of infectious humor, unpretentious intellect, and genuine heart that made High Fidelity an instant classic and Hornby himself one of the most popular literary writers of his generation. Farley, Powells.com Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:High Fidelity is the story of Rob, a pop music junkie who runs his own semi-failing record store. His girlfriend Laura has just left him for Ian from the flat upstairs. Rob is both miserable and relieved. After all, could he have spent his life with someone who has a bad record collection? This narrowly misses his list of all-time top five most memorable split-ups. Rob seeks refuge in the company of Barry and Dick, the offbeat clerks at his store. They speak the masculine language of lists, endlessly reviewing their top five films (Reservoir Dogs...); top five Elvis Costello songs ("Alison"...); top five episodes of Cheers (the one where Woody sang his stupid song to Kelly...). Rob tries dating a singer called Marie (a post-Partridge Family, pre-L.A. Law Susan Dey), who once sold a song to Nanci Griffith. Her rendition of "Baby, I Love Your Way" makes him cry. But maybe it's just that he's always wanted to sleep with someone who has a record contract. Then he sees Laura again. And Rob begins to think (as awful as it sounds) that life as an episode of thirtysomething, with all the kids and marriages and jobs and barbecues and k.d. lang CDs that this implies, might not be so bad.
Review:"It is rare that a book so hilarious is also so sharp about sex and manliness, memory and music." The New Yorker
Review:"[I]t's [Hornby's] literate, painfully honest riffs on romantic humiliation and heartbreak that make the book so special. A rare, touching glimpse of the masculine view of affairs of the heart." Joanne Wilkinson, Booklist
Review:"Mr. Hornby captures the loneliness and childishness of adult life with such precision...that you'll find yourself nodding and smiling....High Fidelity fills you with the same sensation you get from hearing a debut record album that has more charm and verve than anything you can recall." Mark Jolly, The New York Times Book Review
Review:"Hornby's seamless prose and offhand humor make for one hilarious set piece after another, as suffering, self-centered Rob ruminates on women, and Abbey Road. But then he's forced to consider loneliness, fitting-in, death, and failure — and that is what lingers." Spin
Review:"High Fidelity is about love, and about the ways in which music (and film, books, and art) affect our experiences of real-life love....Although [it] is a trip through territory that in real life is mundane, depressing, and trite...the novel is anything but." Molly Gould, San Francisco Review of Books
Review:"[A] disarming, rueful and sometimes quite funny first novel..." Publishers Weekly
Review:"Made me laugh out loud more than any book I can remember. Hornby writes like Martin Amis with a heart or Roddy Doyle with an unfeasibly large record collection." Tony Parsons, Daily Telegraph (London)
Review:"Told in an engaging first-person voice that blends sarcasm with self-deprecating humor, High Fidelity presents a painfully funny take on love, music, and growing up....
Review:"Reading this book is like reading an owner's manual for men....It's a quick, snicker-out-loud-then-nod-knowingly read. Then leave it around so your boyfriend picks it up. Tell him it's about music." Bust Magazine
Synopsis:A pop music junkie, deserted by his girlfriend, fulfills his lifelong dream of dating a singer with a recording contract. It doesn't help. About the AuthorNick Hornby is the author of the bestselling novels High Fidelity and About a Boy, as well as the memoir Fever Pitch. He is also the editor of the short story collection Speaking with the Angel. In 1999, he was the recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters E. M. Forster Award. He lives in north London. What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!
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