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How to Be Good
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9781573229326
ISBN: 1573229326
Label: Riverhead Trade
Manufacturer: Riverhead Trade
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: April 30, 2002
Publisher: Riverhead Trade
Release Date: April 30, 2002
Studio: Riverhead Trade
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Editorial Review:
In Nick Hornby's How to Be Good, Katie Carr is certainly trying to be. That's why she became a GP. That's why she cares about Third World debt and homelessness, and struggles to raise her children with a conscience. It's also why she puts up with her husband David, the self-styled Angriest Man in Holloway. But one fateful day, she finds herself in a Leeds parking lot, having just slept with another man. What Katie doesn't yet realize is that her fall from grace is just the first step on a spiritual journey more torturous than the interstate at rush hour. Because, prompted by his wife's actions, David is about to stop being angry. He's about to become good--not politically correct, organic-food-eating good, but good in the fashion of the Gospels. And that's no easier in modern-day Holloway than it was in ancient Israel.
Hornby means us to take his title literally: How can we be good, and what does that mean? However, quite apart from demanding that his readers scrub their souls with the nearest available Brillo pad, he also mesmerizes us with that cocktail of wit and compassion that has become his trademark. The result is a multifaceted jewel of a book: a hilarious romp, a painstaking dissection of middle-class mores, and a powerfully sympathetic portrait of a marriage in its death throes. It's hard to know whether to laugh or cry as we watch David forcing his kids to give away their computers, drawing up schemes for the mass redistribution of wealth, and inviting his wife's most desolate patients round for a Sunday roast. But that's because How to Be Good manages to be both brutally truthful and full of hope. It won't outsell the Bible, but it's a lot funnier. --Matthew Baylis
Katie Carr is a good person. She recycles. She's against racism. She's a good doctor, a good mom, a good wife....well, maybe not that last one, considering she's having an affair and has just requested a divorce via cell phone. But who could blame her? For years her husband's been selfish, sarcastic, and underemployed, writing the "Angriest Man in Holloway" column for their local paper. But now David's changed. He's become a good person, too-really good. He's found a spiritual leader. He has become kind, soft-spoken, and earnest. He's even got a homeless kid set up in the spare room. Katie isn't sure if this is a deeply-felt conversion, a brain tumor-or David's most brilliantly vicious manipulation yet. Because she's finding it more and more difficult to live with David-and with herself. "Hornby pulls off the seemingly impossible: He tackles marriage and the nature of benevolence from a woman's point of view without sacrificing his impish charm." (New York)
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - I'm so relieved to see the other bad reviews!
Usually a Nick Hornby fan, but not this time. Besides being meandering, plotless, bizarre and implausible the characters are all quite dislikable, most notably the narrator. While the other characters seem to have a character arc, no matter how unrealistic it may be, the narrator remains hateful, unhappy and stuck, with little kindness for anyone nor any self reflection. That she has an epiphany about the pleasure of reading is just further torture to this reader since this book seems to bring little ... Read More
Rating: - It's okay--good for vacations or reading breaks
This was the first Hornby book I've read. I understand now why his books are so easy to put to film. His writing style is very simple--I feel a very bright young person could write with as much authority. They're accessible, but in a way that isn't flattering to the author, in my opinion.
Loving the film High Fidelity, I found it disconcerting that his main character's voice in this book (a female doctor) was very similar, near identical at moments, to the voice of Rob.
It's an ... Read More
Rating: - Funny in places, but not terrific
This story has a slow start, a poor ending, and a pretty good mid section. The main character, who speaks in the first person, starts by recounting the many disappointments of her sad existence. She has arrives at the midpoint of her life, enters a dark wood, and things go completely off the tracks. She has an affair, fights with her husband and children, and despairs about her job. She confronts her meaningless existence. Hornby makes all of this pretty funny.
We get to know her through her interior ... Read More
Rating:  - Makes me want to be good... or at least better
Nick Hornby is quickly becoming my favorite author. I loved "A Long Way Down" and "About a Boy." I don't know which is my favorite, but "How to Be Good" is every bit as good as the others.
It's painful in its accuracy of the internal conflict every person faces when debating living comfortably vs. helping those in need. One can't help but identify with the seriously flawed narrator, while seeing all those flaws up close, personal, and in glowing neon lights.
I'm not being in any way ... Read More
Rating: - not very good, ... really!
'How To Be Good' by Nick Hornby is a disappointing read. Actually, the book is a mess. The plot, such as it is, involves a dysfunctional London family who brings aboard a vagrant, Mr GoodNews, who has mysterious powers to make things ... good. Yes, total rubbish. Mercifully the author does have a sense of humor. But unfortunately midway through 'How To Be Good' most of the humor fades and it becomes burdensome to read.
Bottom line: it reads like the author made it up as he went along. ... Read More
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