Nick Hornby: "I believe in reading until you find the book that speaks to you"

On Thursday I went to see author, Oscar nominee and Believer columnist Nick Hornby speak at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan. Hornby has a shaved head and the kind of unplaceable English accent that would be described by the typical American as "Well, it's not Michael Caine, but..." He was introduced and later interviewed by Believer editor Vendela Vida, who has luminous skin and delivered a hilarious deadpan address casting all of Hornby's accomplishments as annoying side jobs from his central focus on "Stuff I've Been Reading."

The program was billed as a "First Reads" event in which Hornby would read a book assigned to him (by... someone) that he had never read before and then give a talk on it. I felt a little let down upon finding out in the room that the book was going to be MRS. DALLOWAY, but I shouldn't have; Hornby delivered a fascinating talk on how his rebellion against formal literature study (starting from the moment when he decided not to read "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight") and the unsympathetic view of a biography he skimmed for a contest caused him to neglect Woolf entirely until this assignment. Hornby joked that he was surprised that so many people turned up to hear someone talking about something he knew so little about, but "that's America for you." 

Hornby contrasted Woolf's occasional patronizations with Dickens, who is now equally beloved in scholarship but whose novels were rarely reviewed in his own time. There's a moment in MRS. DALLOWAY where a man is described as "nondescript," which he sees as Woolf's opinion in a nutshell: that some people are just not worth the narrative space -- again, not an attitude Dickens would have shared. But he praised Woolf's beautiful structure and the way the consciousness of MRS. DALLOWAY flows from subject to subject.

The Believer column whose fourth collection MORE BATHS, LESS TALKING has definitely shaped Hornby's own reading tastes, beyond his occasionally picking shorter books to read (he admitted, guiltily). He said he feels less pressure now about reading the latest prizewinner just to have an opinion on it, but instead chooses to focus on "books I think I would get something out of." He also acknowledged (without naming names) that some books' faults are the faults of the reader, for not giving them proper attention. Hornby also spoke briefly about his current adaptation projects, Colm Toibin's BROOKLYN and Cheryl Strayed's WILD (I know, right??) as well as his struggles adapting to an e-reader, which he said he can only use while traveling for convenience's sake.

Almost Fainting While Listening To Cintra Wilson

Last night I went to a comedy show at Greenlight Bookstore featuring a number of contributors to the Believer, on the occasion of their latest book of advice coming out this week. (Contributor Julie Klausner looked at the cover and sniffed, "I didn't know those were the cars. That's illegal.") The Believer's advice column is short on actual advice and long on wit, if you've never read it, but contributors had enough latitude to add jokes as necessary and I suspected some of those who read last night were ad-libbing at least a little.

I think I was most curious to see critic Cintra Wilson, who read from her forthcoming book about advertising and fashion (and some of her advice pieces, including a very funny one about needlepoint). Wilson has stepped back from the New York Times style section after criticism over this column about J.C. Penney, which was too bad because her Critical Shopper columns had a delightful bite to them that no one else replicates. (That I didn't find the column offensive is neither here nor there, really, but I'm pointing it out anyway.) Wilson has a voice in the Jerri Blank region and climbed up on a store table to read because, as she explained, not only was she short but she also had "totalitarian" impulses.

I took a friend from work who is a Michael Ian Black fan (who isn't?) and who, by chance, had never been to the bookstore, so I felt I had done my good deed by promoting it. Black read from his new memoir YOU'RE NOT DOING IT RIGHT about the first harrowing months of parenting and how they mysteriously seemed to double under the spell of advanced sleep deprivation.

The one regrettable spot to the evening was that it was very warm in the bookstore and midway through Wilson's "Fast Five" review (which I loved) I started feeling unsteady and dizzy and, with none of my adult grace, wobble-kneed it down to the floor for the rest of the reading. I'm not a fainter, but I wasn't the only one who was suffering from the heat. (Astonishingly it was much cooler at floor level and I was able to stare at people's Converse and Danskos and come back to myself.) Greenlight, if you're checking your referrals this morning, please open the door next time as I could probably take about 4 people down with me if I fell and you don't want to be responsible for that kind of carnage.

How to resist subscribing to The Believer now?

Not only did the Believer bring Nick Hornby back, they also added Daniel Handler reading one Nobel Laureate's book a month? ... I've been really, really good this year... and I had a day of woe yesterday... so tempting. (Great idea of Handler's by the way.)