Ten Years in the Tub by Nick Hornby Read Free Book Online Page A

“This morning George breakfasted on six After Eights [After Eights are “sophisticated” chocolate mints] and some lemon barley-water. I was pleased— pleased —because lately he hasn’t been eating at all…” In our house it’s salt-and-vinegar crisps.
    I can imagine George and Sam doing a roaring trade with grandparents, aunts, and uncles tough enough to want to know the truth. I read it while listening to Damien Rice’s beautiful O for the first time, and I had an unexpectedly transcendent moment: the book coloured the music, and the music coloured the book, and I ended up feeling unambivalently happy that my son is who he is; those moments are precious. I hope George and Sam finds a U.S. publisher.
    A couple of months ago, I became depressed by the realization that I’d forgotten pretty much everything I’ve ever read. I have, however, bounced back: I am now cheered by the realization that, if I’ve forgotten everything I’ve ever read, then I can read some of my favorite books again as if for the first time . I remembered the punch line of The Sirens of Titan , but everything else was as fresh as a daisy, and Vonnegut’s wise, lovely, world-weary novel was a perfect way to cap Charlotte Moore’s book: she’d prepared the way beautifully for a cosmic and absurdly reductive view of our planet. I’m beginning to see that our appetite for books is the same as our appetite for food, that our brain tells us when we need the literary equivalent of salads, or chocolate, or meat and potatoes. When I read Moneyball , it was because I wanted something quickand light after the 32-oz steak of No Name ; The Sirens of Titan wasn’t a reaction against George and Sam , but a way of enhancing it. So what’s that? Mustard? MSG? A brandy? It went down a treat, anyway.
    Smoking is rubbish, most of the time. But if I’d never smoked, I’d never have met Kurt Vonnegut. We were both at a huge party in New York, and I sneaked out onto the balcony for a cigarette, and there he was, smoking. So we talked—about C. S. Forester, I seem to remember. (That’s just a crappy and phony figure of speech. Of course I remember.) So tell your kids not to smoke, but it’s only fair to warn them of the down side, too: that they will therefore never get the chance to offer the greatest living writer in America a light.

February 2004
    BOOKS BOUGHT :
    Â Â Â Â Â     Old School—Tobias Wolff
    Â Â Â Â Â     Train —Pete Dexter
    Â Â Â Â Â     Backroom Boys —Francis Spufford
    Â Â Â Â Â     You Are Not a Stranger Here —Adam Haslett
    Â Â Â Â Â     Eats, Shoots and Leaves —Lynn Truss
    BOOKS READ :
    Â Â Â Â Â     Enemies of Promise —Cyril Connolly
    Â Â Â Â Â     What Just Happened ?—Art Linson
    Â Â Â Â Â     Clockers —Richard Price
    Â Â Â Â Â     Eats, Shoots and Leaves —Lynn Truss
    Â Â Â Â Â     Meat Is Murder —Joe Pernice
    Â Â Â Â Â     Dusty in Memphis —Warren Zanes
    Â Â Â Â Â     Old School—Tobias Wolff
    Â Â Â Â Â     Introducing Time —Craig Callender and Ralph Edney
    Â Â Â Â Â     PLUS : a couple of stories in You Are Not a Stranger Here ; a couple of stories in Sixty Stories by Donald Barthelme; a couple of stories in Here’s Your Hat What’s Your Hurry ? by Elizabeth McCracken.
    M y first book was published just over eleven years ago and remains in print, and though I observed the anniversary with only a modest celebration (a black-tie dinner for forty of my closest friends, many of whom were kind enough to read out the speeches I had prepared for them), I can now see that I should have made more of a fuss: in Enemies of Promise , which was written in 1938, the critic Cyril