Ten Years in the Tub: A Decade Soaking in Great Books - Hornby, NickSummary: Culling the best of his monthly column "Stuff I've Been Reading" in The Believer magazine, the bestselling author presents hilarious observations on a vast array of topics, and provides a wide-ranging reader list that serves as a reminder as to why we read.
Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* How often do you begin reading a book that makes you—immediately, urgently, desperately—want to read more books? Collecting 10 years of Hornby's wonderful Stuff I've Been Reading column in The Believer, this is the next best thing to having a real-live Hornby to urge you on. Each column starts with a list of Books Bought and Books Read, instructive in themselves, and then proceeds to a digressive discussion that is as much about the enterprise of reading as it is about the books he discusses; I haven't even read the books I think I've read. I can't tell you how depressing this is. Frequently funny and endlessly quotable, Hornby's columns discuss reading out of his comfort zone, binge reading, reading fasts (usually when soccer season starts), reading his writer-friends' books, and the rarely aired idea that, sometimes, when a book doesn't seem good, maybe—just maybe—it's the reader's fault. Through it all, he struggles, cheekily, against The Believer's dictum that all reviews be positive. (Disliked books, sadly, must not be named.) Bursting with enthusiasm and clear-eyed about the author's own contradictions, Ten Years in the Tub deserves to be devoured whole by anyone willing to spare 10 minutes to think about the books they read.
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