N I C K H O R N B Y .
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Biography
Nick Hornby was born in 1957, and is the author of four novels, three of which have been adapted into films, and one book of essays about his favorite songs. He also edited the collection of short stories entitled Speaking with the Angel, which benefited Treehouse, a school in London founded by parents whose children have been diagnosed with severe autism. In 1999, Hornby was given the E.M. Forster Award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives and works in Highbury, North London.
He hopes to complete a novel with the working title The Kings and Queens of Shambles this year.
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Books
A Long Way Down (Riverhead Hardcover, June 2005)
Introduction, Heavy Weather by P.G. Wodehouse (Penguin, May 2005)
The Polysyllabic Spree (McSweeney's, 2004)
McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, contributor (McSweeney's/Vintage, 2003)
Introduction, Summer Lightning by P.G. Wodehouse (Penguin Books, 2002)
Songbook (McSweeney's, 2002)
How to Be Good (Riverhead Books, 2001)
DaCapo Best Music Writing 2001: The Year's Finest Writing on Rock, Pop, Jazz, Country & More, editor and contributor (DaCapo Press, 2001)
My Favorite Year: A Collection of Football Writing, editor (Phoenix House, 2001)
About a Boy (Riverhead Books, 1998)
Picador Book of Sportswriting, coeditor with Nick Coleman (Picador, 1996)
George Graham: The Wonder Years, editor, with Jeff King and Tony Willis (Virgin Books, 1995)
High Fidelity (Putnam, 1995)
Fever Pitch (Penguin USA, 1994)
My Favorite Year: A Collection of New Football Writing, editor (Gollancz/Withreby, 1993)
Contemporary American Fiction (Palgrave Macmillon, 1992)
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Awards
National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, 2003, Songbook
WH Smith Award, 2002, How to Be Good
Long-listed for Booker Prize, 2001, How to Be Good
E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, 1999
Writer's Guild, 1995, High Fidelity
William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award, 1992, Fever Pitch
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Films
About a Boy, 2002
High Fidelity, 2000
Fever Pitch, 1997
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Press
November 2003
UK Newsquest Regional Press
Review: Songbook
Hornby Hits All the Right Notes
By Vicki Green
"An intensely readable, unpretentious and wonderful parable on the power of music."
October 2003
OC Weekly
Review: Songbook
School of Rock
By Cornel Bonca
"Hornby seems companionable and unpretentious and emotionally open, and he's unflaggingly interesting about pop
music, and I like his intellectual insecurity, plus he seems like the understanding older brother of the protagonists
of two of his novels, High Fidelity and About a Boy, guys with whom I have an uncomfortably close affinity."
Spring 2003
Rain Taxi
Review: Songbook
By Francis Raven
"Hornby masterfully lays out the vast territory of experience that is the pop song."
February 2003
The New York Times
Review: Songbook
Hitsville U.K.
By Gerald Marzorati
"That, essentially, is the theme Hornby develops variations on in the 26 brief essays, each devoted to a pop recording or two, that constitute his small, singular and delightfully passionate new book."
February 2003
Writer's Chronicle
Interview
By Tom DeMarchi
"I started writing in 1983. Funnily enough, I did start by writing plays. They were sort of screen-cum-radio-cum-TV plays, and they weren't very good."
February 2003
London Evening Standard
Review: Songbook
Hornby's Magic Tracks
By TimLott
"Hornby's 31 Songs is a triumph, and quite the most enjoyable book he has written since High Fidelity. It succeeds because it is not simply about music."
2003
San Francisco Chronicle
Review: Songbook
By David Kipen
"On page 118 of his delightful, let's hope influential new book, Nick Hornby makes a startling admission."
July 2001
Salon
Review: How to Be Good
By Laura Miller
"The specimen that Hornby has under consideration here, then, is the quintessential Angry Guy, albeit what seems to be a peculiarly British variation on the breed."
March 2001
The New York Times
Review: Speaking with the Angel, edited by Nick Hornby
By Mary Elizabeth Williams
"What a relief then that this anthology of short stories, edited by the novelist Nick Hornby (High Fidelity), is worth reading for the sheer joy of its smart, sharp-edged narratives."
April 2000
The New York Times
Film; Keeping Faith with High Fidelity
By Jamie Malanowski
"Indeed, 'I never expected it to be so faithful,' Mr. Hornby fairly chirped last week. 'At times it appears to be a film in which John Cusack reads my book.'"
March 2000
The New York Times
Film Review: High Fidelity
The Trivially Hip: A Music Geek's Warped Love Life
By Stephen Holden
"Besides Mr. Cusack's Rob, the movie is sparked by more than half a dozen incisive performances."
Penguin UK
Interview
"I think that my son Danny, who is autistic, has had a great influence on the book because I have been more involved and asked to do things that I wouldn't otherwise have been asked to do if Danny hadn't been autistic."
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Additional Links
Treehouse, a UK charity founded in 1997 by a group of parents whose children had recently been diagnosed with severe autism.
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Author Photo
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Photo by Jonathan Pilkington
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