Sometimes we all need a break. Whether it's an actual break where you take a vacation or an emotional break. And although I love to read, it happens that every once in awhile every book I pick up is garbage. It either doesn't interest me or it's just plain boring. I have no problem acquiring books. I love spending lots of money and time in my favourite bookstores. And the piles of books becomes bigger and bigger and yet none of them actually appeal to me.
I was happy to discover I wasn't the only one that experiences this. During my literary slump I heard about Nick Hornby's Ten Years in the Tub which is a collection of his "Stuff I've Been Reading" articles for the Believer from 2003-2013. Each article starts with "Books Bought" and "Books Read" and I was comforted by the fact that the 2 lists didn't always match. And he doesn't always finish everything he starts either. In fact, he's pretty hilarious when he doesn't like a particular book, which are not named because of the Believers tongue-in-cheek dictum that all reviews be positive.
Over the ten years its interesting to see the slumps that Hornby goes through. Some months he can read a whole bunch of books, while others he unapologetically admits to only have read one or semi-reading. He often gets books for free, especially those that remind his gift givers of his writing. And he says there's nothing worse than reading an author similar to yourself.
The Years in the Tub is not so much a book about books but a book about the reading experience. Because sometimes we proudly display the front covers of our books while other times we prefer to read certain titles on our e-readers not so much for convenience's sake but for the discretion it allows.
"In the decade that he’s been writing this column for the Believer(with the occasional month off to watch Friday Night Lights or the World Cup—two of the three acceptable excuses for not reading, the other being “captured by pirates”) Nick Hornby has created the most intelligent, engaging case for reading you’re ever likely to encounter. Funny without being snarky, generous without sacrificing critical heft, Hornby-on-books is, forgive my English, bloody brilliant. “Stuff I’ve Been Reading” is unfailingly smart but without any of the obnoxious showy bits—lit theory, obscure Russian surnames, untranslated French (agreeably psycho-surrealist, the book nonetheless reflects Spankmeoff’s fromage de l’extrémité arrière)—that might serve to remind a poor reader that while he attended Eastern Washington University on a partial welding scholarship, the author happens to be a Cambridge man." - from the Introduction by Jess Walter
