This book is the fourth collection of award-winning English novelist, screenwriter, journalist, and critic Nick Hornby’s monthly books column for the Believer. It covers the last two and a half years of Hornby’s reading diary, which appears in the magazine under the title “Stuff I’ve Been Reading.” The column always begins in the same way: Hornby lists the books he’s bought that month, followed by the books he’s actually read. The seasoned reader, accustomed to the vicissitudes of a life spent accumulating books, can probably guess without checking that in any given month, the Books Bought and Books Read lists hardly overlap.
Hornby’s dispatches provide a surprising, stimulating, and inevitably hilarious tour through the contours of a deeply generous and good-natured intelligence. Hornby reads widely, with an inimitably affectionate and sardonic curiosity. The essays in this book guide readers toward great books in every genre, from fusty to pop, introducing works they may have overlooked, dismissed, or simply bought and forgot beneath a pile of other books.
Adding More Baths Less Talking to one’s own Books Read list may renew one’s energy for attacking a nearby pile of unconquered paperbacks, and should inspire a more forgiving attitude toward allowing those piles of unread books to grow a little higher.