The Polysyllabic Spree: A Hilarious and True Account of One Man's Struggle with the Monthly Tide of the Books He's Bought and the Books He's B

by Nick Hornby

Books are, let's face it, better than everything else, writes Nick Hornby in his Stuff I've Been Reading column in The Believer. This book collects Hornby's popular columns in a single, artfully... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1932416242
• ISBN13: 9781932416244
• Release Date: November 2004
• Publisher: McSweeney's
• Length: 230 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Typical Hornby!

I purchased this book a few months ago and I find that he and I share the same literary likes and dislikes! Also, I love his writing style. Overall, I recommend it to anyone who is a bibliophile (like me) because it's a book about books.

You can't not like him

I am attracted to books that discuss the author's reading and ideas about it and inevitably I get so far and wonder, why aren't I out there reading for myself instead of holding this person's hand? Not so with this, which is over far too soon. Hornby, riffing about his own reading, his life, his outlook, is holding the reader's hand. The title would suggest a word riot, which THE POLYSYLLABIC SPREE is, but it is also the name Hornby puts to the murkily protean powers that be at "The Believer Magazine" where the book was born in monthly columns. Each month's chapter begins like an entry in Bridget Jones's Diary, books bought, books actually read, then leaps off into what happened, what he actually read, what he thought about it, how it connects (and sometimes does not, like when one's football team is on the television) to life. Hornby is very funny, and also very serious. He is also full of contagious, unabashed wonder. He is quick to skewer pretension or gratuitous content. His style is highly caffeinated and raspy from nicotine, hilariously hyperbolic one moment, piercingly specific the next. He is willing to say he is wrong or doesn't know. He keeps it all about our mutual love of reading, but divulges other insights along the way, like what it's like to be the dad of an autistic child, to become a father for the third time, to try unsuccessfully to quit smoking, to be a writer amongst all the reading, the parenting and everything else going on. The proceeds of this book go to charity. How can you not like this guy?

Soccer, Music, and Now Books--Hornby Completes His Hat Trick

As I wrote in my review of "Songbook", I suppose I should admit up front that I'm one of those people who would buy the phone book if Hornby wrote it. Like many guys of my generation and ilk, I consider "High Fidelity" to be close to the perfect novel. That said, I'm starting to wonder if maybe Hornby might actually be a better writer of non-fiction than fiction. His debut, Fever Pitch explains being a diehard soccer fan with more eloquence and depth than anything before or since. His second nonfiction work, Songbook, was not only some of the best music writing I've read, but perfectly captured the essence of being a pop music fan. Here, he completes the hat trick with an excellent collection about being a book fanatic. This handsomely produced paperback consists of fourteen articles he wrote for the uberhip lit magazine The Believer, chronicling his monthly reading habits from September 2003 to November 2004. Each essay begins with a list of books purchased and books actually read -- and as most avid readers will suspect, titles from the two rarely overlap in the same month. Interspersed are also a five excerpts from books he read (by Chekhov, Dickens, Patrick Hamilton, Tony Hoagland, and Charlotte Moore), evidently intended to break things up and get one "in the mood." As in Fever Pitch and Songbook, one doesn't have to be in sync with Hornby's taste in order to enjoy the essays. That's because he is surprisingly erudite on whatever he's writing about, while being consistently entertaining at the same time. This is probably because he's not reading "for" anyone, he's reading for himself. And with license to read and write on whatever he wants, the result is an excellent window into the sometimes strange motives and obscure links that drive what we read. But it's not just about what he reads, but also how, and about how life intrudes on reading time (during soccer season, his reading declines). Which is not to say he doesn't talk about the books. For example, praising the forgotten novels of an obscure writer, or the poetry of another, or plowing through various thick biographies. If nothing else, he's probably going to make you think about picking up a Dickens book in the near future. Hornby's most impassioned and forceful writing is reserved for scoffing at the notion that reading for fun and reading for enrichment are two separate things. In other words, the divide between literature and fiction. He's a firm believer that the distinction is a false one, and fortunately the last decade has seen the world of publishing and bookselling slowly agree, as genre distinctions are no longer as rigidly enforced, and works of crime and science-fiction are sometimes permitted to leave their ghettos and be shelved with the general fiction. Another fine bit occurs in August 2004, when he stumbles across Dennis Lehane's Mystic River and is blown away by its combination of gripping plot and masterful writing (I've not read it). This leads him to wonder w

Bibliophiles rejoice!

Nick Hornby's "The Polysyllabic Spree" is an entertaining collection of essays about why Hornby buys so many books, reads some of them, and fails to read or finish others. Hornby gives his "varnished" opinion about what he has read. Why? It is part of the creed of "The Believer," the publication for which he writes, that he is not allowed to be too snarky. Therefore, he cannot give his unvarnished opinion lest he be called to task, or even worse, fired. This is an intensely personal book that feels as if Hornby is sitting on our living room couch and conversing with us. It is hilarious, thoughtful, and delightfully tongue-in-cheek. "The Polysyllabic Spree" is a slim book that you can knock off in a day. The essays are divided by month. In each chapter, Hornby lists the books he has purchased and completed that month. He then proceeds to explain his choices and gives a quick critique of what he has read. In a few cases, Hornby includes excerpts from his readings. To say that his literary tastes are eclectic is a huge understatement. He includes not only fiction and poetry, but also a book about the economics of putting together a winning baseball team, a sociological study of two women living in the Bronx, a best-seller about punctuation, and a book about how to quit smoking. Hornby gives the reader a glimpse into his family life, as well; he describes the ups and downs of living with an autistic son. (He includes several books about autism in his readings.) Although I did not entirely agree with his criticism of Zoe Heller's "What was She Thinking?" or Mark Haddon's "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time," I was in total agreement with Hornby on Dennis Lehane's "Mystic River," which he and I both adored. Whether or not you and Hornby are on the same page as far as literary criticism is concerned, if you are a bibliophile, you'll most likely find something in this book to amuse or divert you. As an added incentive, all proceeds of the book go to two worthy charities.