“... running, or played some favourite music, loud. They might find an ex to have sudden sex with, as Nick Hornby had his hero do in High Fidelity. Different people relieve the closed-in misery of family and bereavement in different ways. On the other hand, there are literary traditions that make much of the visual and functional closeness of clothing and ...”

“... to read Laurie Colwin – not friends so much as novelists like Jonathan Lethem, Brandon Taylor, Nick Hornby and Ann Patchett, who mention Colwin when asked to name an ‘overlooked or unappreciated writer’ or one they’d invite to an imaginary dinner party. And then there are all those Substack and Instagram lists suggesting ‘What to Read When It ...”

“... once, Campos acknowledges a writer who captured this melancholic disposition as well as any other. Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch (1992), a memoir about his life as an Arsenal fan, and High Fidelity (1995), a novel about a music fanatic, were products of a new cultural zeitgeist, with fandom to the fore. The two books were also sustained reflections on ...”

“... everything should be shorter, even Ian McEwan. More troubling was Professor Carey’s opinion that Nick Hornby’s How to Be Good is ‘a very impressive novel of ideas’, just the kind of thing the Booker should favour. Ah, that would explain the exclusion of Coetzee’s novel of ideas, Elizabeth Costello – not up to the ...”