The Complete Polysyllabic Spree

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'So this is supposed to be about the how, and when, and why, and what of reading - about the way that, when reading is going well, one books leads to another and to another, a paper trail of theme and meaning; and how, when it's going badly, when books don't stick or take, when your mood and the mood of the book are fighting like cats, you'd rather do anything but attempt the next paragraph, or reread the last one for the tenth time'. In his monthly accounts of what he's read - along with what he may one day read - Nick Hornby ably explores everything from the classic to the graphic novel, as well as poems, plays, and sports-related exposes. And, if he occasionally implores a biographer for brevity, or abandons a literary work in favor of an Arsenal soccer match, then all is not lost. His writing, full of all the joy and surprise and despair that books bring him, reveals why we still read, even when there's soccer on TV, a pram in the hall, and a good band playing at our local bar.

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Nick Hornby is the bestselling author of High Fidelity, About a Boy, How to Be Good and A Long Way Down (shortlisted for the 2005 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award), as well as the non-fiction Fever Pitch and 31 Songs. He is the recipient of the E. M. Forster Award, the W. H. Smith Award for Fiction and the Writers' Writer Award at the Orange International Writers' Festival. He lives in Highbury, North London. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.