Hornby, Nick

"From the . . . author of Just Like You, High Fidelity, and Fever Pitch, a short . . . book about art, creativity, and the unlikely similarities between Victorian novelist Charles Dickens and modern American rock star Prince. Equipped with a fan's admiration and his trademark humor and wit, Nick Hornby invites us into his latest obsession: the cosmic link between two unlikely artists, geniuses in their own rights, spanning race, class, and centuries--each of whom electrified their different disciplines and whose legacy resounded far beyond their own time. When Prince's 1987 record Sign o' the Times was rereleased in 2020, the iconic album now came with dozens of songs that weren't on the original--Prince was endlessly prolific, recording 102 songs in 1986 alone. In awe, Hornby began to wonder, Who else ever produced this much? Who else ever worked that way? He soon found his answer in Victorian novelist and social critic Charles Dickens, who died more than a hundred years before Prince began making music. Examining the two artists' personal tragedies, social statuses, boundless productivity, and other parallels, both humorous and haunting, Hornby shows how these two unlikely men from different centuries 'lit up the world.' In the process, he creates a lively, stimulating rumination on the creativity, flamboyance, discipline, and soul it takes to produce great art"--Provided by publisher.

Recreates the fever pitch of football fans in Great Britain, and describes how football has played a defining role in thousands of young men's coming-of-age stories.

At the age of fifteen, Sam Jones's girlfriend gets pregnant and Sam's life of skateboarding and daydreaming about Tony Hawk changes drastically.

Will, a thirty-six-year-old London bachelor, undergoes a change in his outlook about marriage and children when he lies to join a single parents group in order to meet women, and becomes friends with a needy twelve-year-old named Marcus.

A former talk-show host, a musician, a teenage girl, and a mother, each intending to commit suicide, find themselves together on the roof of a London building and begin to contemplate their individual choices and circumstances.

At the age of fifteen, Sam Jones's girlfriend gets pregnant and Sam's life of skateboarding and daydreaming about Tony Hawk changes drastically.

Recently dumped by his wealthy girlfriend, record store owner Rob Fleming finds himself in financial trouble and sets out on a pilgrimage to ask his former girlfriends where their relationships went wrong and to learn where his life went off track.

A former talk-show host, a musician, a teenage girl, and amother, each intending to commit suicide, find themselves together on the roof of a London building on New Years Eve, and begin to contemplate their individual choices and circumstances.