I have a problem.You see, when it comes to reviewing my favorite books, I’m all thumbs. Coherent thoughts elude me and float downstream like a toy boat escaping from a little boy’s grasp.Rob is my soul mate, you see. He and I are the same fucked up, insecure, too-much-in-our-own-head-for-our-own-good person. I think he would get me. Really Get me. Or maybe it's just Hornby who gets me. Mr. Hornby, you make me want to wear dresses.During my last year of high school and through all four years [...]

I realize that I give far too many books a four or five star rating. So sue me.Book buying isn't, you know, a quick thing for me. I browse, I choose, I read the blurbs inside, I deliberate, I read a chapter from ever book I've chosen.In short, I only read things I'm really likely to like.So, I will tell you right now, if there were a way to give [High Fidelity] six stars, I would.Ostensibly it's a novel about pop music and love. But if that's what you're seeing, then you are reading it wrong.It' [...]

Nick Hornby writes about losers and makes them lovable. But not this time. I couldn't stand the self-pitying little git, his loser wanker record store buddies, nor their ridiculous fracking lists. Reading this book felt like being trapped in an elevator with the pathetic Scrubs douchebag (Zachy McWhinerson, or whatever his fracking name is) for an entire weekend. You know the type - the constant puppy need for the approval of every critter on the planet, all the time. It might seem like a charmi [...]

High Fidelity is several things at once.It is a specimen of guylit (I just invented the term yes) - romance and single life explained from the point of view of a man. And we have so few of those. It is a humorous reflection on life and its many failings.And lastly, it is the tale of a Brit singleton in his mid thirties who is unrelentingly firm in his reluctance to grow into a man.A man who is so caught up in his fantasies of the ultimate love one is destined to end up with, that he ignores the [...]

Top Five Reasons to Read This Book:1) Offers multiple opportunities to fall off your chair laughing.2) Draws entirely convincing characters making stupid decisions and dealing with the repercussions.3) Reminds you of all sorts of artists you must check out further.4) Answers the "what if" questions of past relationships with horrifying clarity.5) Satirizes but ultimately validates top-five lists.

Rob runs a record store in London, has two weird sidekicks, creates silly top-five lists of everything and his girlfriend Laura has just finished with him. What more could I say about him ? Well, Rob is thirty-five selfish asshole, pompous snob and a pathetic, emotionally immature loser. But I still like him . And who is immature now, huh ? Do not worry, I will not treat you now with a tearful story about my ex, though I will tell you about a guy who, if I ever had compiled, in imitation of Rob, [...]

This is the only Nick Hornby book I've read, and it seemed like a good introduction to the genre I imagine must be called "dick lit." I read it on a plane to the West Coast, and it was the perfect thing: started at take-off, finished just before landing, this had the perfect proportions of light and engaging for 30,000 feet. Ultimately, I found it sort of silly and empty and I had a hard time choosing between two and three stars, but I thought I'd give it a break here, because even though it was [...]

Read as part of The Infinite Variety Reading Challenge, based on the BBC's Big Read Poll of 2003.I used to think-and given the way we ended up, maybe I still do-that all relationships need the kind of violent shove that a crush brings, just to get you started and to push you over the humps. And then, when the energy from that shove has gone and you come to something approaching a halt, you have to look around and see what you've got. It could be something completely different, it could be someth [...]

Remember all those Romantic films or even the hapless Romantic Comedies you’ve seen, the infinitesimal, clichéd and hopelessly repetitive plots? The same guy and gal meet somewhere odd or mildly weird so that things are interesting. Probably a boss and employee type of thing (The Proposal? Go to hell, Ryan Reynolds, you big-mouthed wanker!) Or two people from very far places brought together by kismet or something as appallingly believable (Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve got Mail, Philadelphi [...]

You mean the book where a pompous sack of sexist shit gets to not only take a dump on his independent ex-girlfriend, while acting pretentious based off of his 'extraordinary' music tastes, but gets her back and somehow everything between them just isn't just fixed - but somehow miraculously better? I CALL BULLSHIT.The starred reviews for this are a fucking riot, celebrating Rob''s "manliness" and telling men not to share this with their girlfriends, because heaven forbid the SECRET WILL BE OUT.w [...]

I have not read the book, but I have seen the movie. Let me explain how much I liked it.As things turned out, I watched it on a cross-Channel ferry travelling from Caen to Portsmouth. The trip takes about seven hours, and I was bored. I recall that I had packed Camus's La peste to read, and to my surprise I wasn't enjoying it at all. I was pleased to find that I had the option of seeing High Fidelity with Catherine Zeta-Jones, one of my favorite actresses. I paid my £3 and sat down to enjoy the [...]

Opening line: My desert -island, all time, top five most memorable split-ups, in chronological order:”This is one of those modern classics on everyone’s “to read” list and while it wasn’t my first Nick Hornby book it is the one that everyone talks about so of course I went into this expecting to be awed. I guess I should mention that I haven’t seen the movie (what! I know) so I knew nothing about the storyline, not that that would have influenced me I just went into this blind. And, [...]

Find all of my reviews at: 52bookminimum/3.5 Stars I’d like my life to be like a Bruce Springsteen song. Just once. I know I’m not born to run, I know that the Seven Sisters’ Road is nothing like Thunder Road, but feelings can’t be so different, can they?When Rob’s live-in girlfriend walks out on him, he’s left questioning all of his relationships and what led up to this point.When I first read High Fidelity umpteen years ago, I thought it was a home run. Grand slam, even. Nick Hornb [...]

There is a 90% chance I am getting made redundant in the next week. How am I feeling? On a scale of one to rubbish, I feel Reading High Fidelity For The First Time Since I Was Sixteen And Had Just Broken Up With A Boy.Didn't even like the job much. Just don't like the uncertainty. Quite like Nick Hornby, though. For medicinal reasons.*****Look out below - apparently is my blog today. Caveat lector.If it matters to anyone, particularly (aside from me, obviously) - I kept my job. The office is li [...]

O Ρομπ είναι 35 χρονών,δεν έχει φίλους,δεν είναι ευχαριστημένος απο τη δουλεια του,νιώθει στάσιμος,νιώθει απογοητευμένος,η κοπέλα του μόλις τον παράτησε για κάποιον άλλο κι αυτός καίγεται να μάθει αν ο άλλος κάνει καλύτερο σεξ απο αυτόν αλλά δεν θέλει να ξέρει.Kαλύτερα να μην [...]

Nick Hornby is da bomb! Seriously. He's funny, astute and while one might think they are reading a straight-forward, comedic tale, there are some fairly deep assessments going on within. Some moments made me laugh out loud and some moments, all too relatable, made my heart hurt. Also - Hornby's book totally made me have an awesome dream about John Cusack and that can never be a bad thing. Ever.

Rarely do I catch myself reading a book after I'd already seen the movie (mostly because I feel as if the movie TAKES something from the book while the book GIVES something to a movie, and thus the order should always be book first and movie second -- so that the book starts with the upper hand), but having enjoyed the movie so much I found myself craving more behind the story.I wasn't disappointed. Biggest difference that I wasn't originally aware of was the location difference, which helped me [...]

Leggero e divertente senza essere mai banale o scontato, questo libro è quanto di più accattivante e gradevole si possa sperare di incontrare nel corso delle proprie incursioni nel mondo della lettura. La trama è scarna, ma viene arricchita e movimentata da una inesauribile vena ironica, dalle brillanti trovate del protagonista e da una schiera di personaggi bizzarri e imprevedibili. Bob Fleming ha una vera fissazione per la musica pop, tanto da averne fatto il proprio mondo, la propria forza [...]

Come Hornby affronta la vita, l'amore e la cultura britannica mi piace sempre molto e averlo letto in inglese me lo ha fatto apprezzare ancora di più. La musica è ciò che più conta nella vita del protagonista e i suoi dischi sono un pò un rifugio, quasi come per me i libri. La differenza è che Rob è un pò uno snob, per cui se non hai i dischi giusti non sei una persona con cui lui può andare d'accordo anche questi tratti un pò più spigolosi del carattere dei protagonisti Hornby li ren [...]

3.5/5Βιβλίο για την αδυναμία μερικών ανθρώπων να ωριμάσουν.Εντονο χιούμορ. Πολλά αγαπημενα τραγούδια

I wish High Fidelity had been about the friends from the music shop. They were a lot funnier than can't remember his name. Can I just say John Cusack? John Cusack used to wear band t-shirts in all his films (notably The Clash). This guy should have been wearing t-shirts to proclaim his taste to the world. It's been a while since I've read this but I think he was listening to stuff like Arab Strap (wow, haven't listened to them in like fifteen years) and The Pixies? Anyway, I don't think it was a [...]

"sex is about the only grown-up thing i know how to do; it's weird, then, that it's the only thing that can make me feel like a ten-year-old""so maybe what i said before, about how listening to too many records messes your life up maybe there's something in it after all. david owen, he's married right? he's taken care of all that, and now he's a big-shot diplomat. the guy who came into the shop with the suit and the car keys, he's married too, and now he's, i don't know a businessman. me, i'm un [...]

Really good book, great film!four stars

High Fidelity is one of my Top 5 All-time favourite movies. (And not only because it's a Cusack movie).Strange then, that I didn't realise for a few years that it was based on a book, and embarassing that I didn't realise, 'til I picked it up, this year, that it was a British book. Shame on me.Rob Flemming is a 30something Record store owner, whose life has hit a bit of a rut. He spends his working day (in a store which has very few customers), hanging out with his social misfit employees, makin [...]

I'd only ever seen the movie, and thought John Cusack's character came across as a colossal ass of epic proportions. (Not just a colossal ass, and not just an ass of epic proportions. He was a combination of the two.) Enough time had passed and I was not really wanting to read any of the more "literary" novels I have kicking around, so I found this on my Kindle and gave it a go.Let's just say the main character doesn't benefit much from a literary treatment. How to describe Nick? He's a Nice Guy [...]

I loved this book. I LOVED it. Again, one of those rare reads that just make you feel so much better about everything around you. And not because the characters were shitty and their life story was worse than yours, but because the characters and the overall plot was so well put together and so well written that all you could do was relax, leave criticism at the door and enter the book's amazing palace! One way or another, Hornby manages to reveal information after information with ease and intr [...]

3.5 stars. I realized about halfway through the book that Rob Fleming is basically me in dude form, which is probably why I found him so insufferable. That says more about me than it does about this book, but there you have it. I quite enjoyed this story of a mid-30s dude who loses the relationship that has kept him grounded for years. Who are we if we are not the reflection we get back from others? He didn't like what he saw, so cue the big life questions with a lot of self-loathing hidden unde [...]

I wanted to hate this book when I read it, but I found instead that I really liked it.

3.5La top five di questo libro: 1) La passione di Hornby per la musica e l'impegno profuso per essa (con annesse tutte le canzoni)2) L'immaturità di Rob e gli alambicchi (seghe non rende) mentali che sistematicamente crea e smonta nella sua testa3) I discorsi tra Rob e i suoi due dipendenti/amici che ti proiettano in un mondo di fanatici religiosi del vinile4) I sorrisi che strappa al lettore5) L'incongruenza delle azioni umane (in realtà non mi piace tanto questo punto, ma mettere solo 4 punt [...]

I can't believe I haven't listed this or anything yet. O JesusI don't even have time now *** Ok, ok, Top Five Reasons that I'm going to review this book now: * I can't let Steve down * This is the basis for one of the best movies of its era, a movie that pretty much everybody I've ever been friends with has seen a hundred times and can quote at willetty much the definition of a popular classic in anyone's book.* The book isn't necessarily better than the movie (only shallow people don't judge by [...]