Ten Years in the Tub by Nick Hornby

Ten Years in the Tub

by Nick Hornby

A Decade Soaking in Great Books

I got two things during that most lovely week between Christmas and New Years —  a lousy cold and this book.  The combination made for a surprisingly enjoyable time.  There I was, in my reading chair, wrapped up in my afghan with this 400 page tome.  Trust me, it was not a pretty sight  — my nose red – box of tissues at my side –  laughing, sneezing, pondering, coughing, drinking some sort of herbal cold remedy tea (not recommended no matter how sick one feels) and scratching down yet another list of books I now want to read – most of which I know, full well, I will never get to.

The good thing is Nick Hornby would completely understand and forgive me for this intention versus reality dilemma. You see, his monthly columns always begin with two lists:  Books Bought and Books Read — and these lists never sync up, which made me adore him on the spot. 

Each column then continues with reviews of the books Mr. Hornby did read and funny chatter about how his life has gotten in the way of his reading – usually a soccer match or binge watching Friday Night Lights.  He does much of his reading in the tub and recommends Body Shop’s Vanilla bath gel.

These Stuff I’ve Been Reading columns first appeared in September 2003, in The Believer – a literary journal published by McSweeny’s. This omnibus edition collects all of the columns published since then up to June 2013

It’s likely a sign of how far I’m gone much of a reader I am —  that I can happily pour through a 400+ page book about what someone’s been reading for the last ten years while nursing a cold and pondering yet another decongestant-fueled nap. Even before this Book Barmy blog, I always enjoyed reading about someone talking about reading books.  (Apologies for that sentence – but it’s the true thought.) 

Ten Years in the Tub shamelessly extols the pleasures of buying, owning, reading and writing about books; 

I suddenly had a little epiphany: all the books we own, both read and unread, are (one of) the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal.

Admittedly, a bit of a self-serving statement by the author, but then again, I really like this guy and if it helps rationalize one’s book hoarding collection — well, why not?  To add to the fun, because Mr. Hornby is a famous author and screenwriter (High Fidelity, About a Boy and he wrote the screenplay for the film Brooklyn – there’s talk of an Oscar…) — he shamelessly name drops his fellow author friends and plugs books written by other family members.

Just a browse through the table of contents is a giggle.  Each essay is only 7-12 pages long and comes with such descriptions as:

April 2004:  Utter rubbish; a truth bent out of shape; unkind words about Amazon reviewers; upcoming Dickensian nutrition

September 2007:  The end of the world; kitchen gizzard experiments; a passable Mick Jagger impersonation; a blank-verse novel about werewolves.

See, how could you not want to dip in?

Admirably, the author recognizes that with serious readers, it’s not all sweetness and light;

…when reading is going well, one book leads to another and to another, a paper trail of theme and meaning; and how, when it’s going badly, when books don’t stick or take, when your mood and the mood of the book are fighting like cats, you’d rather do anything but attempt the next paragraph, or reread the last one for the tenth time.  “We talked about books,” says a character in Charles Baxter’s Feast of Love, “just how boring they were to read, but how you loved them anyway”.  Anyone who hasn’t felt like that isn’t owning up.

HA – isn’t that the truth?  Later he goes on in the same vein…

I would never attempt to dissuade anyone from reading a book.  But please, if you’re reading a book that’s failing you, put it down and read something else, just as you’d reach for the remote if weren’t enjoying a TV program.  All I know is that you can get very little from a book that is making you weep with the effort of reading it.  You won’t remember it, and you’ll learn nothing from it, and you’ll be less likely to choose a book over Big Brother (reality TV show) next time you have a choice.

Already smitten with Mr. Hornby, I fell into a deep comrade crush when I discovered he shares my love of biographies.  Just read this passage from his description of Ball of Fire by Stefan Kanfer (a bio of Lucille Ball).

“Almost every Sunday night ended with a furious argument about each others’ intentions and infidelities.  It happened that two of the town’s greatest magpies witnessed many of the quarrels.  F. Scott Fitzgerald and his inamorata, columnist Sheilah Graham, used to watch the spats from Fitzgerald’s balcony.” (from Ball of Fire)    ~~    F. Scott Fitzgerald used to watch Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez fighting?  Why didn’t I know this before?  If this story is true — and there’s no reason to doubt it — then all is chaos.  No biography can be left unread, just in case there is a gem like this lying there, undiscovered within it’s pages.  Maybe Thomas Pynchon repeatedly bangs on Sarah Michelle Gellar’s wall because she plays her music too loud!  Maybe Simon Cowell and Maya Angelou are in the same book group!

Again on the subject of biographies, Mr. Hornby (in my mind I actually call him darlin, in a Mrs. Robinson husky voice) dedicates almost a whole column to describe a wonderful biography of Charles Dickens by Claire Tomalin.  It’s on my list to be read and perhaps yours too after reading his column, here’s a snippet:

…this  wonderful and definitive book is, above all, about a man (Dickens) who got the work done, millions of words of it, and to order, despite all the distractions and calamities.  And everything else, the fame, and the money, and the giant shadow that he continues to cast over just about everyone who has written since came from that.  There’s nothing else about writing worth knowing really.

Cheryl Strayed’s books Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things are reviewed with reverence (Hornby wrote the screenplay for the film, Wild).  But he perfectly captures the spirit of her advice book Tiny Beautiful Things (coming soon to Book Barmy):

Pyschotherapeutic books have agendas, self-help books are usually cynically conceived and deal with single usually intractable issues — what else is there?  Strayed deals with marital dissatisfaction, grief, ambition, self-loathing, sexual disasters, parental cruelty, and just about everything else that can go wrong during the course of our allotted time on this planet, and she simply refuses to accept that any situation is literally hopeless, it’s part of her belief to offer hope, even if that hope is a very faint light at the end of a very long tunnel.

It’s difficult to capture the variety of the essays in Ten Years in the Tub.  Through many of them Mr. Hornby riffs on the differences between the British and Americans with snort aloud humor.  He reads his forgotten copy of Ondaatje’s Running in the Family, while sitting on the floor, because one of his toddlers  pulled it off a lower shelf and left it there.  He tries to explain cricket and why the game can last for days without a score (I still don’t get it).   He panics, after the birth of his third son, that he’ll never get to a bookstore again and mentions the UK’s version of the Oprah book club – called Richard and Judy.  Just as clichéd as Oprah’s, but with the always classier British covers —  judge for yourself HERE.

Mr. Hornby, darling, you had me with your voice – something we are still developing here on Book Barmy. Your easy tone, your wacky humor, the thought-provoking essays and I love your mind — overflowing with delightfully disparate ideas.

You make it appear that reading and reviewing books is so very easy.  One just sits down writes what one is thinking and there you have it – a brilliant essay.  (Sighh – or not). 

Ten Years in the Tub is worth seeking out, keep it for a rainy day, or as I did, when that cold brings you down  –  it’s pure delight to just dip in anywhere for as long as you like…no pressure, just enjoy it.

Finally, someone who gets it — books and reading can, and should be sheer fun.