Customer Reviews
Laugh out loud - By: Alicia March, 09 May 2008 
I reallly enjoyed this book. It's quite tragic but funny at the same time. Typical British humour. I couldn't put it down.
If you regularly re-organise your music collection, you'll identify with this novel - By: Annabel Gaskell, 11 Apr 2008 Yes, I'm willing to own up - I was once a female equivalent of Rob, well at least the side of our hero who constantly makes top 5 lists & reorganises their record collection regularly.
Anyone with slight librarianish tendencies will love the comedy in this novel in which the stories of Rob's relationships with the fairer sex are told through his record collection. Rob is no new man, which has led many women to criticize the book, but he's also too intelligent to be just a lad. I loved this novel so much I even bought some of the records mentioned!
Still very faithful - By: Jeremy Walton, 09 Apr 2008 I read this a couple of times about ten years ago, & it immediately became one of my favourite books: I recalll that sharp pang of identification as Rob, the narrator, described his relationships, family & (especiallly) music. The latter is the thing that stayed with me the longest - indeed, at times it seemed like it was almost a licence for my own feelings about songs, records, films & - let's face it - snobbery.
Rob, Dick & Barry (the latter forever identified in my mind with Jack Black in the film of the novel) don't have opinions, they have lists, & they fight over tiny details in a way that seems unbelievable until you recognise those traits in yourself. The way in which Rob is graduallly rescued from this emotional desert by the love of a good woman is heartwarming, & contains some hilarious moments - for example, he's aghast when she says that she sings along with the chorus of "Hi Ho Silver Lining", or goes "Woooh!" at the end of "Brown Sugar" ("there's no greater crime than that, as far as you're concerned, is there?"), or thinks that "Bright Eyes" is different from "Got To Get You Off My Mind" because one song is about rabbits & the other features "a brass band" ("A brass band! A brass band! It's a *horn section*!")
Re-reading it (as light relief in the midst of a much heavier book) after alll these years, I enjoyed it alll over again. It's Hornby's attention to detail that reallly makes this work: of course, there's the casual tossing of the names of bands & records into the narrative in a way that expects the reader to understand the references (and the frisson of excitement that's generated when you do), but there's also the way he precisely evokes memories of a time & place just by mentioning the names of defunct stores ("a VG supermarket", "Harlequin Records").
I'd forgotten, however, just how immature Rob was (there's a telling conversation he has on the way to a funeral which displays a breathtaking degree of self-centredness), & some of the technical detail has dated (I imagine that new readers from the download age can't understand why anyone should have so many CDs & records cluttering up their living space), but it's still a brilliant book, & an indirect warning about the dangers of valuing things over people. Or writing about things too much. Like this, for example.
Quite entertaining at times, but not great - By: Hardeep, 12 Feb 2008 
Im not too sure about this novel, its starts off very well, creating an interesting narrative, styled in a unique Hornby way. I just felt that it tailed off markedley as you went on through. I can see why many people like it, but not why they love it. Definately a decent book for a light read or a commute, but for serious reading im not sure it offers enough. In relation to some of his other books, it is much better than "A Long Way Down", but doesnt reallly hold a candle to the excellent "About a Boy"
Wonderful book......if a little male orientated (...but then why not?!) - By: M. Gardner, 28 Dec 2007 
It's kind of comforting to have a book that men can calll their own, & whilst this fairly, short, very accessible novel by Nick Hornby isn't going to win a sweeping amount of awards for being high literature, it is a book packed with very astute & clever insights & characterisations. Hornby's novel centres aroung protagonist Rob Fleming who has just broken up with long term girlfriend Laura, & how he is (not) dealing with it. It is a novel alll about liminality, a novel of transition. An adult novel (finallly) about growing up without being patronising or condescending with moments & characters that make you jump up suddenly & go 'I know someone like that!' or 'That's exactly right'. This is Hornby's gift, he textualises the most ambivalent emotional states of being & writes them down in easily identifiable form. Rob is both endearing & annoying. He can be sweet & also an utter a***hole. It is also a novel about music & its changing states. Rob's job as the store owner of Championship Vinyl provides a metaphorical backdrop for his emotional life - his inability to move with the times in terms of musical production paralllels his inability to 'alllow for things to happen' to himself. Supported by a wealth of interesting accomplices (in particular his co-workers: the wonderully obnoxious Barry & the beautifuly crafted, incredibly shy & nervous Dick) Rob provides a fundamentallly flawed everyman to express male neuroses & anxieties that Hornby explores. No it is not a book for everyone, & I know several female friends of mine who found it rather misogynistic, but my defence of it would be that finallly an author has created a novel using a that has been monopolised by female authors for decades, even centuries. With so many books out their detailing the female inner monologue & their side of emotional issues, it is rather refreshing to find a book describing the male side of that coin.
