San Francisco, CA : Believer Books, [2012].
In this collection of "Stuff I'm Reading" columns that Nick Hornby writes for the Believer magazine, he is back after a hiatus of, well, not writing such columns, that he finished in Shakespeare Wrote for Money. The essays in More Baths Less Talking cover about a year and a half (May 2010 to November/December 2011) of reflections on what he's read. Each column starts out with two lists - books bought and book read - followed by an essay filled with humor, his life, and most of all books.
I love these columns. There are now four books in the series that can be read in any order, but it is fun to pick up a new book and remember past columns to which he occasionally refers. While Hornby's taste is generally quite different from mine, I nevertheless always add a book or two to the ever-growing to be read list while dipping into these collections. Mostly, though, I just enjoy getting into the head of another reader, someone who loves books as much as I do and who can write about it in a cogent, interesting, and funny way. Reading these books always leaves me wishing I could write my own column like that, but I know I could never do it as well. I shall have to settle for reading (and rereading) Nick Hornby's columns, and wishing that the columns and his books were longer.
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