How to Be Good

Rating:
Summary: Just cause it isn't believable doesn't mean it isn't true
Review: A lot of the reviews I just skimmed mention this book's "unbelievable premise" or variations on that, but I'll be honest: I lived through the events in the book. The person in my family didn't go through the exact same conversion as the husband in "How to Be Good," but it was the same type; and it was just as abrupt, just as unexplained, with no inciting incident or foreshadowing. It's the kind of thing that happens, and Hornby does an excellent job of showing how it can change and fracture a family, and just how difficult it can be to deal with -- if someone's doing no obvious harm, or in fact doing things which sound "good," on what grounds do you complain about them? How do you justify leaving them?

That's the sort of conflict the protagonist faces -- made stronger by the fact that her husband's change has made him an almost compulsive philanthropist.

This is the only book I've ever thrown across a room, except for times when I was trying to kill a cockroach; parts of it were intensely frustrating because I related so well to them, and I just had to stop reading. The four star rating is, frankly, a guess; when you're this close to the material it's all but impossible to rate it fairly.

Rating:
Summary: How Good Does it Really Get???
Review: "How to be good" is a book written by Nick Hornby.one of the best english humor writter there is now. You all must have heard about him and his hilarious movie "About a Boy"! This book is about a female charecter called Katie Carr who is a normal good mother, she goes to church on Sundays and she takes care of her two children who cause a lot of trouble in her life. She works in a hospital were she has a lot of patients that she can't treat until she meets a guy that changed their whole family. The guy's name is called DJ GoodNews who worked in a newspaper stall but had a very unique talent. He can cure people by just giving them a simple massage. GoodNews made David, Katie's husband, a whole new person. He was working for a newspaper collumn in the local newspaper called "The Angriest Man in Holloway." to becoming one of the nicest guy in the whole neighbourhood. His idea was that if you had extra stuff give it away to the poor and if you have a spare room in your house, why not share it with people who really need it? Later on in the book he tries to persuade people to do what he is doing and some people agree to his plan. I really liked the way Nick Hornby used the view of a female charecter when he is a male which is a really hard thing to do when writting a piece. Also in the book you can see the diffrent perspectives of diffrent age groups and people, which is very intresting because you get multiple views of a isue. This book has extremly witty humor also most of his books have normal citizens who have a overload of social problems in their life to be solved.

This book really changed my view on the homeless people and it really made me think what should the community do to help these unfortunate people. I think the idea that David had was a bit to far because it is not so safe to have a street influenced kid around people and maybe your own kids. I'm a 15 year old who is not a big reader and I hardly ever read because I think its boring and its useless and i fall asleep easily. But when I read this book, i read it in about a week because i really enjoyed it and it had something all other books dont have. So if you like reading books then this has to be your next one on your list. The only thing i disliked about this book was that it got a little bit boring after a while because some parts in the book were a little bit useless towards the plot. So go click on buy or go rent it because this book will surely change you way of thinking and you can see how good it is for yourself!

Rating:
Summary: Good
Review: Hornby does it again with this great story. He is an expert at depicting troubled human realationships. In this one, the main character is Dr. Katie Karr, a self-professed good person who feels that all that was good in her life has melted away. She's married to David, who writes an angry newspaper column called the "Angriest Man in Holloway." In his free time, he writes a mostly worthless novel. They have two children who cause a lot of stress. Katie has just started an affair because she feels unloved by her bitter and angry husband. However, by the time the secret is revealed, David has come into contact with DJ GoodNews, a new age faith healer. This encounter with GoodNews causes David to completely flip his personality. He becomes a complete angel, but over time he starts making grandiose plans to save the world. Which is worse, the angry David or the crazy David? Can they hold their family together as David becomes more eccentric?

While it's true that this one is not quite as good as High Fidelity or About a Boy, it's still a great book with lots of insight into the crazy conformity of suburbia, and what happens when it is disrupted by some original thinkers. Is it bad to be too good? Is there such a thing as "too good?" Read and decide for yourself.

Rating:
Summary: The Unbearable Weight of Goodness
Review: The central character of How to be Good, is Doctor Carr -- in her late thirties, a practicing physician and woman burdened by a marital crisis when the book opens. She wants to leave her cynical, semi-employed, journalist husband, partly inspired to do so by an affair she having with a more attentive lover, Stephen. What happens to keep her in the marriage is the arrival of DJ Goodnews. He is possessed of seemingly shamanistic, curative powers and, in no time, Goodnews has transformed the good Doctor's husband. He ceases to be the locally renown curmudgeon and becomes, instead, a crusader for the poor, one who embodies the liberal spirit of helping those least able to help themselves. The Carr's house becomes a focal point for a block-wide effort to adopt the homeless. Monkey, a tall lanky, young man becomes the special guest of the Carr household. A beggar by day, he is also, as Dr. Carr realizes, the only member of the household earning an income other than herself -- David Carr and Goodnews being absorbed completely in their campaign of doing good. All this is hard on the marriage. Yet, Dr. Carr got what she wished for. Not sure that she likes it, she consults her own Delphic Oracle from an Anglican Church she has, in desperation, visited: Should she stay or divorce?

This is a book about the limits of human kindness and idealism, both within a marriage and within the larger community. Most books that turn a marriage under a micro-scope fail to see how and where that relationship belongs in the larger world. Hornby's plot succeeds in doing just that and providing, along the journey, some very funny moments.

Rating:
Summary: How to Be Good by Nick Hornby Audio Cassette
Review: Half of the pleasure of this recording is the reader's skill. She brilliantly conveys the characters of the book with accents and attitudes that are dead on.
The other half is Hornby's point of view which is both hilarious and humane. He loves his characters enough to be gentle with them even as he is being painfully honest about what people do to each other precisely when they are trying to be good.

Rating:
Summary: A Hornby newbie left wanting
Review: I've seen the movie "About a Boy", but "How to be Good" is my first Hornby read and it left me a bit disappointed. It starts out good enough. Katie, the central character of the novel, wants to divorce her angry husband David. She describes accurately typical marital issues with enough levity as to not leave you wanting your own divorce since much of it should "hit home" to many long married couples. I laughed outloud quite a few times.

But after her husband is changed spiritually by DJ Goodnews, Hornby began to address the title of his book through Katie- the eternal question of how to be good in today's society? How to reconcile your own middle class comfort with all the bad stuff that you know is out there in the world? Katie afterall is a doctor and so is by definition "good", but her husband begins to take it to the extreme and she finds herself questioning her own identity and her definition of "good".

Every person brings their own personal experience to a novel when they read it and mine was that I have been married to my own husband for 13 years now and I have children the exact ages of Katie's children in the novel- a 10 year old boy and an 8 year old girl. So, I had some problems with Katie's personal journey along the way- namely her apparant dislike of her children. Yes, she goes to great lengths to convince her kids that she and their Dad won't get a divorce, but she allows her children to be around all that crazy stuff that happens in the book? It was too far fetched for me to believe. I had to believe that any "normal" mother would have taken her kids and ran for their lives if the husband/father pulled anything like that. She was after all the bread winner of the family, David didn't even HAVE a job after his conversion, so it's not like she needed him around for financial support. Katie was very spineless in that regard and I lost a lot of respect for her. But then, if Katie had acted like I'd have acted, Hornby wouldn't have had material for the book. So, off I hopped back off my soap box to see where he'd take me. Goodnews and David annoyed me to no end with their save the world self-righteousness and I found my 2 favorite characters to be Tom and Barmy Brian! Even the ending left me wanting. Katie and David seemed to find a happy medium to the goodness issue, but the state of their marriage still seemed doomed to me. They were still destined to be unhappy and simply settling. I wanted to feel hope for their marriage and all I felt was sorry for the kids.

I'm sure that Hornby leaves the question of how to be good unanswered on purpose, because when you get right down to it, it's impossible to answer.It's just too subjective for there to be a right or wrong answer. This was why I was hoping for some sort of resolution to the marital issue.

The book certainly does make one question their own needs vs. wants, and whether one is doing what one can for the good of society outside the cozy walls of one's microcosm. It was a nice, easy, and often funny read that simply left me a little wanting at the end.

Rating:
Summary: It inspired me to do something for charity...
Review: ... by giving the book away to the nearest charity store. I received this novel as a Christmas present. It was a short read, at least, but a cringingly bad one. At least it is only a few hours from New Year now, so I can say that the extreme displeasure of wading through this pointless novel will soon be relegated to 'last year'. This book was so badly done I wouldn't know where to begin describing it. Let's just summarize by saying novels usually benefit from having a plot, and slightly credible characters (not women protagonists speaking like 40-year-old men... or little boys speaking like 40-year-old men either). I hope someone at the thrift store can find a use for it. Toilet paper, perhaps?

Rating:
Summary: A shallow gimmick.
Review: I'd have a hard time categorizing this as a novel. It's a cartoon gimmick idea, which Hornby has then tried to stretch into novel length. The trouble is, the gimmick is underdeveloped and not half as clever and funny as the author thinks it is. The entire book is, in short, an insult to any reader's intelligence.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but not his best.
Review: I'm a big fan of Nick Hornby, but this book is a little bit of a downer. It's a decent book and it's well written, like his others, but the subject matter is a little depressing. It's worth reading, but don't expect to feel warm fuzzies afterwards.

Rating:
Summary: A worthwhile book to read
Review: This is an excellent read.

The idea of that the narrator is a female never fits quite right (There are several jarring moments when there is no way you can believe it is a female speaking.), but when you set that aside, there is so much to enjoy.

The book constantly questions the idea of 'good'. It never answers the question satisfactorily; I think I would have been disappointed if it had. It doesn't retreat into mouthing what the Bible or the New Age'er would consider good, though both subjects are addressed.

How does a sane person try to do good in this world?

How has the idea that a person must be good affected us?

It's not a likeable book, but it is a book you would read when you're feeling out of sorts and cynical(and have no real, single, solid reason to be)with the world because you can look at these characters trying to sort themselves out in life and see that you're not the only one.