The Complete Polysyllabic Spree
by Nick Hornby
Penguin, HK$111
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is 'one of the most influential books of the last fifty years', says Nick Hornby as he sheepishly confesses to never having read it. The release of the movie Capote (nominated, among other categories, for best motion picture) in 2005 shamed him into doing so. 'But the trouble with influential books is that if you have absorbed the influence without ever having reading the original, then it can sometimes be hard to appreciate the magnitude of the achievement.' He loved In Cold Blood, he says, but it was not 'a Major Literary Experience'. The Complete Polysyllabic Spree is a collection of the columns he wrote for a US literary magazine Believer from September 2003 to June 2006. Each begins diary fashion, with books he bought and books he read. Rarely do they cross. Between ruminations on everything else he did that month, what emerges is an often contradictory discourse on what it means to enjoy reading. Hornby's personal objective is 'to make tiny little incursions into the territory of my own ignorance', but he has a basic rule - there should be 'an emotional connection that makes you feel excited and alive'. Read any good books lately? Well, as a matter of fact, yes.