{"id":6704,"date":"2015-01-17T09:37:29","date_gmt":"2015-01-17T14:37:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lettersandsodas.com\/books\/?p=6704"},"modified":"2015-01-17T09:37:29","modified_gmt":"2015-01-17T14:37:29","slug":"more-baths-less-talking-by-nick-hornbybeliever-books-mcsweeneys-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/more-baths-less-talking-by-nick-hornbybeliever-books-mcsweeneys-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"More Baths Less Talking by Nick HornbyBeliever Books (McSweeney’s), 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

More Baths Less Talking<\/em>, which I decided I wanted to read after reading Stefanie\u2019s post about it on So Many Books<\/a>, contains fifteen short pieces that were originally published in the Believer<\/em> magazine between May 2010 and December 2011. The pieces are from Nick Hornby\u2019s running \u201cStuff I\u2019ve Been Reading\u201d column, and they\u2019re really great. Each piece begins with two lists: \u201cBooks Bought,\u201d and \u201cBooks Read\u201d: not surprisingly, sometimes those lists overlap, but sometimes they don\u2019t at all. I\u2019ve read hardly any of the books Hornby bought or read during the timespan covered by this book—if I\u2019m counting correctly, I\u2019ve read three of the ninety-five that he lists—but that\u2019s OK. I\u2019d heard of a bunch of the books he mentions, and a number are already on my list of books to read someday (Emily Fox Gordon’s Book of Days<\/em>, and Carl Wilson’s Let’s Talk About Love<\/em>, and Sarah Bakewell’s How to Live<\/em>, and David Almond’s My Name is Mina<\/em>, and Barbara Demick’s Nothing to Envy<\/em>, and probably some others, too). And, not surprisingly, my list of books to read has grown as a result of this book. (Despite the fact that it seems like pretty much everyone has read and liked Just Kids<\/em>, I wasn\u2019t particularly interested in it, but Hornby describes it as \u201ca riveting analysis of how an artist ended up the way she did,\u201d and \u201call the things she read and listened to and looked at that helped her along the way\u201d (29). OK, I\u2019m interested now.) <\/p>\n

Hornby\u2019s style is smart and funny and immensely readable: the way he brings together the books he\u2019s read over the course of a month, whether they\u2019re thematically related or not particularly, is a delight. The Believer<\/em>, apparently, has a \u201cno snark\u201d rule, and this probably contributes to the tone of these essays, which are largely positive, though not in a fawning way. Hornby comes across as an interested and attentive reader, and I like the facts\/passages\/ideas he chooses to highlight from the various books he\u2019s read. For example, here is a thing I didn\u2019t know before reading this book:<\/p>\n

In England after the war, no TV was shown between the hours of six and eight p.m., a hiatus that became known as the Toddler\u2019s Truce; the BBC decided that bedtime was stressful enough for parents as it was, and, as there was only one TV channel in the U.K. until 1955, childless viewers were left to twiddle their thumbs. (28)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And Hornby clearly understands the vicissitudes of a reading life: here, he\u2019s talking about having gotten three books for his birthday:<\/p>\n

Several months later, and I have finally read one of the three, even though I wanted to read all three of them immediately. (What happened in between? Other books, is what happened. Other books, other moods, other obligations, other appetites, other reading journeys.) (82-83)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is the fourth collection of Hornby\u2019s \u201cStuff I\u2019ve Been Reading\u201d columns, and it has totally made me want to read the other three, but that will have to wait: I am, as I mentioned previously, participating in The TBR Double Dog Dare<\/a> right now, which means I’m only reading books I already own between now and April 1, with exceptions for books like this one (which I checked out of the library in December) and library books I had put holds on in or before December that come in between now and April. This actually is a great book to have made an exception for: it’s making me wonder what excellent reads are sitting on my shelves waiting for me to discover them. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More Baths Less Talking, which I decided I wanted to read after reading Stefanie\u2019s post about it on So Many Books, contains fifteen short pieces that were originally published in the Believer magazine between May 2010 and December 2011. The pieces are from Nick Hornby\u2019s running \u201cStuff I\u2019ve Been Reading\u201d column, and they\u2019re really great. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonfiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6704\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}