| | 31 Songs |  | Author: Nick Hornby
Publisher: Penguin
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy Used: £0.01
You Save: £7.98 (100%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 114652
Media: Paperback
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5 x 0.8
ISBN: 0141013400
Dewey Decimal Number: 781
EAN: 9780141013404
ASIN: 0141013400
Publication Date: June 28, 2003
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 26-28 of 28 | | « PREV | | |
 Disappointing March 10, 2003
16 out of 22 found this review helpful
A very disappointing book. Extremely short (I read it in a couple of hours) it also doesn't actually contain much about the songs themselves, only a series of diatribes by Nick Hornby about stuff that annoys him. This should have been a magazine article, not a book. Avoid.
 Ain't That Enough March 5, 2003
8 out of 11 found this review helpful
Nick Hornby, champion of 'lad lit' here puts his cards on the table and shows us what really makes him tick. His mission was to write about thirty one songs which have been, in some way, significant during the course of his life and literary career. Why thirty one? I have no idea.
Among the chosen are some real eyebrow raisers - 'I'm Like A Bird' by Nelly Furtado; 'Puff the Magic Dragon' by Gregory Isaacs; 'Frontier Psychiatrist' by The Avalanches - as well as the expected (Dylan, Springsteen, The Beatles, Zeppelin) for a man of Hornby's age (I'm a year younger so I should know!) with some - at times - uncomfortable reading in between. Hornby emphasises at the start of the book that his choices and the accompanying essays were intended to show what it was in each song which made it significant, loveable even, rather than attaching memories to each, giving the song a definite time and place like the soundtrack to a tacky biopic.
For the most part Hornby is true to his word and he goes to great lengths extolling the lyrical and musical virtues of Springsteen's 'Thunder Road', as an example, rather than reminiscing on what he was wearing, who he was with etc when he first listened to the song. However, at times he does stray off the Highway and wanders down Memory Lane; his first visit to the States in the mid-seventies led to his discovery, Biblical in its significance, of the J Geils Band at the house of a friend and the ensuing obsession does read like badly written biography...which leads quite desperately to Badly Drawn Boy! While writing his essay on BDB's 'A Minor Incident' (from the soundtrack to the film 'About A Boy') Hornby makes no apologies for getting seriously autobiographical and not only gives us an insight to the choice of Damon Gough as composer but also reveals details about how the book came to be written in the first place. Cloyingness and publisher-led capitalisation are, thankfully, avoided at this point.
31 Songs is not a book which will change my life or my listening choice although, for curiosity's sake, I will listen to some Ben Folds and Mark Mulcahy purely in the name of research. Approach Hornby's book with an open mind and your favourite music filling the background and you will appreciate his most critical point that music, no matter what label is attached to it by 'The Industry' should be listened to, should be given a chance to sell itself to you on the sole proviso that the music in question is worth the effort. Maybe, bearing that in mind, I'll add The Avalanches to my wish list. Or perhaps I'll wait for the CD soundtrack of 31 Songs to be released? In the words of one song both Hornby and myself put up there with the gods, Aint That Enough?
31 Songs: A Book That Could Change The Way You Look At Music March 3, 2003
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
I've always been a firm believer in the fact that you can tell a lot about a person by their record collection, and my beliefs have been affirmed in this book. In '31 Songs', Nick Hornby (Author of Fever Pitch, High Fidelity and About a Boy) opens himself up to the reader in a frank and honest way. The book chronicles 31 Songs that have inspired him over the years and why they mean so much to him, from a particularly special book launch through to a love of incurable and relentless bohemianism, with the perfect song to lose one's virginity to and a film soundtrack in between. It is not only funny, as we have come to expect from Hornby's work and his particular take on life, but also touching in places. This is a lovely and insightful glimpse into the very soul of a writer, and although these would not be my 31 songs, it has made me want to go and listen to every one of his songs, just so that i know.
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