High Fidelity

well i finished reading it and it was truly a delight ... high fidelity by nick hornby ...

the author is brilliant ... and he has quite an impressive resume to prove it ... according to the author info page, the guy has written for GQ, cosmopolitan, elle, and esquire among others ... but it's not just the writing or the dialogue ... the plot and the characters are just as good ...

basically the book is about this guy called rob fleming ... he's in his thirties ... lives in north london ... he owns a modest little record shop called championship vinyl ... and he's just recently become single after his girlfriend laura just left him for the guy who lived in the apartment above his ... rob is now a lonely man ... well he still has his two employees from the shop, barry and dick, to keep him company ... they spend most of their time together discussing what songs constitute the perfect mixtape in addition to coming up with top five lists ... like the top five episodes of cheers or top five side one track ones for example ... but other than that ... his life is pretty much empty ... he is obviously feeling miserable and what follows is a lot of soul searching ... i won't tell you how he goes about it or what he finds just in case any of you decide to read the book ... which i highly recommend by the way ...

the book is about relationships ... but it's not a romantic novel ... it's more about growing up and maturity than about passion and desire ... in terms of movies, the book is more of a knocked up than say a titanic ... and it's not done in a dr. phil way either ... it's very witty and funny ... although some parts did depress the hell out of me ... but that's just a testament to how well it's written ...

i should also probably mention that this is a guy's book ... it delves into the male psyche in a way that i think only men would really be able to understand and identify with ... there were a lot of times when i found myself nodding and saying that is so true and remembering a similar experience ... but i don't know ... maybe females can enjoy it too ... i mean i liked the devil wears prada ... and that was a pretty feminine book ... so why not ...

also ... i learned that the book was made into a movie ... so i'm gonna try and watch that ...

in closing ... i will leave you with a passage from the book ...

First of all - actually, first of all and last of all - this business about not sleeping with Ian. How do I know she's telling the truth? She could have been sleeping with him for weeks, months, for all I know. And anyway, she only said that she hasn't slept with him yet, and she said that on Saturday, five days ago. Five days! She could have slept with him five times since then! (She could have slept with him twenty times since then, but you know what I mean.) And even if she hasn't, she was definitely threatening to. What does "yet" mean, after all? "I haven't seen Reservoir Dogs yet." What does that mean? It means you're going to see it, doesn't it?