Rating: 
Summary: not worth it.
Review: It was hard to get into the book after chapter 2. It turned into this rant about this song was a good choice for "About A boy" and this song wasn't, and I listened to this song when writting About a Boy. The opening chapter about Springsteen's thunder road was great, then the book just fizzled. The end of the book is filled with top ten lists thatyou'd find on any average person's website: pure filler.
Rating: 
Summary: Smart and idiosyncratic
Review: It's a great book. Don't read it if you expect him to write about all of the songs you think he should consider "great," for reasons you might traditionally give for liking a song. Hornby, like a lot of great writers, writes about songs that he likes because they remind him of things: they remind him of other songs that they inspired him to buy, they remind him of why he doesn't listen to them anymore, they remind him of how much he hates the other better-known songs by the same artist because they're overplayed and have had all of the life sucked out of them. He also has a wonderful way of digressing -- which other reviewers here don't like, but which I think is the best thing about the book. The book isn't about the songs at all, really. It's not about the people who wrote "Needle in a Haystack" or "Heartbreaker," about how the songs were produced or their chart positions or their histories. It's about how those songs make him feel, how they made him feel when he first heard them (in fact, he has a whole digression, the best thing in the book, about how disappointed he is that he can't know what it must have felt like to be 19 or 20 years old and to hear Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" when it first got played on the radio), how certain things can't be recaptured, can't be reproduced, can't be relived (he refers to how awful it is that most pop music these days is so overplayed and overexposed that you never get a chance to develop a unique and intimate individual relationship with it, which is one of the reasons why a lot of people under 30 love music that would never get played at Starbucks). He does go rather overboard on "Thunder Road," but it's his favorite song, and he's entitled. I would probably go overboard if I had a favorite song. His essay at the end about Patti Smith is pure genius.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Idea, No pay back
Review: My wife gave me this book for my Birthday. The idea was wonderful and I was intrigued. I had never read Nick Hornby, but I am a fan of High Fidelity. That night I went to bed the book and my kid's CD player. I started off well until I got to the 2nd essay "Thunder Road". Nothing on the CD. Now I suppose that I could find this song fairly easily, but since there are 31 essays and only 12 tracks on the CD I quickly got totally uninterested in the book. Why would anyone want to read about a tune that he didn't know or could listen to at the same time. I figure copyright must be the hangup, but I honestly can't imagine "The Boss" refusing to let a recognized author use an old song to gain a glowing review that might be read by thousands of readers. The book will remain unread & unlistened toat my house.
Rating:
Summary: Good read
Review: Nick Hornby and I are the same age, and come from the same part of England. His confessional, unpretentious and honest style of writing helps you identify with many of his characters. He is perceptive, and has many wise and interesting things to say. Hornby is a bit like a friend you would like to have, and writes about stuff that is fascinating to English males of a certain age (football / soccer and rock music). Like a friend some of his likes and passions are sometimes difficult to understand. In Fever Pitch he confesses his love for Arsenal, who at the time were the most boring and pragmatic team in English football history. Arsenal were successful, but also famous and reviled for their plodding and unimaginative style of play. Hornby clearly takes his pop music seriously and has not reached the stage where he is prepared to give up on it. For me and most of my friends pop/rock played the greatest influence in our life between the ages of 12 and 19. After about 19 it became more difficult hear new stuff that had the same impact. That is why I am surprised that he did not include more songs from 1970-76. The book is a good read but like his taste in music is a bit like taste in football teams - effective bit a boring musically. Lyrics seem to be as important, if not more so than the music, therefore the liking for Dylan and Springsteen. He likes Samba Pa Ti (which was a great slow dance record in England, which he does not mention). He tells readers to buy a Greatest Hits package if they want to hear more Santana. Well to me, musically albums like Caravanserai, Welcome, Love Devotion and Surrender (with John Mclaughlin) and Illuminations (with Alice Coltrane) is the group's most interesting stuff. Bill Laswell has done a great job recently re-mixing the last two. However this music is much more like jazz than rock, and is something he does not listen to. I don't understand how he could have existed in the England on the early mid-seventies without listening to prog-rock or have a liking for one of the following: Pink Floyd, Caravan, King Crimson, Yes or Genesis. I am not sure that he was right about the coolness of Rod Stewart in '73, at our school he would have been pitied if he bought Smiler. I enjoyed reading the book and music is a personal thing. It was good to re-run some of the old debates about the value of pop music and of particular artists.
Rating:
Summary: Reawaken your love of music
Review: Nick Hornby's gift as a writer is how he manages to express his love and appreciation of music through words. One of greatest pleasures in life that we so easily take for granted is discovering new music that yesterday was missing from our life and today seemingly becomes integral to our existence as we repeatedly play and sing along to the song. Hornby manages to capture and describe this unique feeling that we all feel but have difficulty expressing coherently. "I love the relationship that anyone has with music: because there's something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. It's the best part of us, probably, the richest and strongest part..." Although I'm fairly sure the majority of readers, will not be familiar with many of the songs that Hornby writes about, the point of the songbook is more personal. It will help you reawaken your own love of music as you shuffle through your music collection and go through a similar period of self reflection. Personally, the book was worth it once I listened to Aimee Mann's "I've Had It", a beautiful soulful song that I've lived without for as long as I can remember, and now I can't go without listening to repeatedly along with the Soundtrack to About a Boy by Badly Drawn Boy.
Rating: 
Summary: hornby has his ears to the ground and his pen to his heart
Review: o Nick Hornby, heart-breakingly funny author of High Fidelity and About a boy, returns with a work of non-fiction. Fans who read High Fidelity will know that music plays a key role in the lives of his characters. In this work on pop culture, Hornby writes about 31 songs that have personally touched and moved him. Some of them are instantly recognisable pop gems, others obscure to even hardened lovers of indy music. But Hornby's strength is in his writing. He makes each song come alive, as he narrates not only a brief history of the song and the band but also why he likes it and most stunningly what the song sounds like. With this book, Hornby gives the phrase "his words were music to my ears" a whole new literal meaning.
Rating:
Summary: song selection?
Review: OK, you people who criticize the book because you disagree with his musical taste are clearly not paying attention - THIS BOOK IS NOT ABOUT THE SONGS THEMSELVES.
The best essay in the book (Puff the Magic Dragon) barely even references the song it's titled after. Rather, the chapter is about his autistic child's response to music, and how that gives Hornby hope for his child's future.
It's in spots like these where Hornby shines - he is able to tackle matters of great gravity (his divorce, his autistic son) with with no bitterness and a healthy sense of humor. In a lesser author's hands, these subjects would be maudlin and corny - Hornby avoids that peril completely.
The book is about the connection between music and emotions - and how songs can exemplify what we want, need, and no longer desire in life, and it certainly tackles this subject well.
Rating:
Summary: Repetitive, but Fun
Review: Saying Nick Hornby likes music will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with his writing or the movies made of them. Even so, I found these quick essays on 31 pop songs to be a bit repetitive, often coming down to the simple themes of "when living in the UK and listening to BBC radio was awful, Song X made it a little more tolerable," and "when I was suffering pain in my personal life, Song X made it a little more comprehensible if not tolerable." Every reader will have his pet peeves with Hornby's selections. Here's mine: even though he picked a great obscure Dylan song (Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?) he respects Dylan too little and Jackson Browne way too much. Also, I only got two new hot tips -- Teenage Fan Club and Badly Drawn Boy. I will definitely give him this, however; he is absolutely right about the fun of having a friend or friends with whom you can take turns introducing each other to exciting new music all your life.
I thought the essays on albums, particular Steve Earle and Hornby's experience listening to the Top Ten albums on Billboard's Hot 100, more developed and interesting than the quick takes on the singles.
Rating:
Summary: A Pleasant Little Book
Review: Scanning the table of the contents of "Songbook," you may have no interest in reading the book. I sure didn't; I either didn't like or hadn't heard of most of the songs Hornby selected. So I certainly wasn't interested in reading essays about them. "Songbook," however, does not consist of essays about songs, but rather uses songs of importance to the author to illustrate the importance, significance, beauty, and power of music in our everday lives. The essays use particular songs as a foundation for commenting on various stages, phases, and incidents in a person's life. Granted, some of the essays are rambling, and perhaps convey points of limited interest. Taken as a whole, though, the books works. I found myself repeatedly agreeing with Hornby about the role certain songs have played in my life. So while I might detest "Thunder road" (Hornby's favorite song), I was able to appreciate his insight into the enduring power of a person's, any person's, favorite song. He succeeds in making this connection more often than not, and for that reason alone, I recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: A Pleasant Little Book
Review: Scanning the table of the contents of "Songbook," you may have no interest in reading the book. I sure didn't; I either didn't like or hadn't heard of most of the songs Hornby selected. So I certainly wasn't interested in reading essays about them. "Songbook," however, does not consist of essays about songs, but rather uses songs of importance to the author to illustrate the importance, significance, beauty, and power of music in our everday lives. The essays use particular songs as a foundation for commenting on various stages, phases, and incidents in a person's life. Granted, some of the essays are rambling, and perhaps convey points of limited interest. Taken as a whole, though, the books works. I found myself repeatedly agreeing with Hornby about the role certain songs have played in my life. So while I might detest "Thunder road" (Hornby's favorite song), I was able to appreciate his insight into the enduring power of a person's, any person's, favorite song. He succeeds in making this connection more often than not, and for that reason alone, I recommend this book.
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