31 Songs - Nick Hornby

Nick Hornby - 31 Songs (Amazon Link)

Does exactly what it says on the cover, Nick Hornby writes about 31 songs he loves.

From Nelly Furtado to Springsteen, it's long form music journalism written from the perspective of an obsessional music lover. In this respect Hornby is a lot like me. He loves music, he's obsessional and passionate about it and can't quite understand why everyone else doesn't quite share his love of music.

For example I can never understand how Louise can love an artist yet be content with just having the greatest hits collection. And the re are many times when I'm raving on and on about some new piece of music I've found only to play it to Louise and be almost mortally offended when she's obviously not interested and is more than likely wondering why she's wasting this 2 minutes of her life listening to this pile of shite.

Like me, Hornby fears he's losing touch with new music, he understands that music is something that needs refreshing - "your old music cannot sustain you through a life, not if you're someone who listens to music every day. You need input, because music is about freshness". Very simply, it strikes me as Nick Hornby sharing all my ideas on music.

However, it took a whole day to read, as it's only a small collection of pieces, 3-6 pages at most & although enjoyable, once I got the basic conceit about music being joyous and something to be continuously renewed and enjoyed, it does get repetitive.