How to be good - Nick Hornby

Y’know when you first buy a book, you sit with a hope and glint in your eye that this one may take away a couple of hours a day for a week or so, well when I bought ‘How to be Good’ I had a quiet hope that this time Nick Hornby would be able to write something that could last me more than a couple of days – how wrong I was, its less than 48 hours since I started the book – and well, I just finished it. Now don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying I have a dislike of Nick Hornby, in fact if I was being honest I’d say that theres only 3 authors that I’d buy a book by solely because they’re involved in it ...

We all want to be good citizens don’t we. You know, donating money to Children in need every year, helping old ladies out with a seat at the bus shelter, you may even spare 50p to give to someone begging in your local subway. For some people, being good is not just a lifestyle choice, it’s a job too. Look at firefighters, police officers, teachers, and of course doctors. They are good people from nine to five. Helping people is what they do. So if there so many of these good people floating about our streets, then why on earth do we have so many problems? The above question is one which is tackled in Nick Hornby’s latest offering, ‘How to be ...

I have previously found Nick Hornby to be a hit and miss author. I enjoyed Fever Pitch; I thought I enjoyed High Fidelity, until I re-read it and the book's innate shallowness shone through, if shallowness can shine? I found About a Boy to be even more shallow, crammed full of metaphors and clichés that were supposed to be funny, but left me feeling that here was a book that was glib. However, all three were well written and supremely easy to read. Why then did I read How to be Good? I suppose its Booker long list nomination and some favourable reviews in newspapers that I respect, persuaded me and after all in all of Hornby's previous books, there ...