- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Penguin; New Ed edition (5 May 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140287019
- ISBN-13: 978-0140287011
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.7 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (139 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 78,220 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
How to be Good
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk 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, self-styled "Angriest Man in Holloway". But one fateful day, she finds herself in a Leeds car-park, having just slept with another man. What she doesn't yet realise is that her Fall from Grace is just the first step on a spiritual journey more torturous than the M25 at rush-hour. Because, prompted by his wife's actions, David is about to stop being Angry. He's about to become Good--not Guardian-reading, 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.
Mr Hornby fires his central theme at us from the title page: how can we be good, and what does that mean? But, quite apart from demanding that his readers scrub their souls with the nearest available Brillo pad, he also mesmerises us with that cocktail of wit and compassion which has become his trademark. The result is a multi-faceted 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 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
According to her own complex moral calculations, Katie Carr has earned her affair. She's a doctor, after all, and doctors are decent people, and on top of that, her husband David is the self-styled Angriest Man in Holloway. But when David suddenly becomes good - properly, maddeningly, give-away-all-his-money good - Katie's sums no longer add up, and she is forced to ask herself some very hard questions. Nick Hornby's brilliant new novel, a No. 1 bestseller in the UK and Ireland, offers a painfully funny account of modern marriage and parenthood, and asks that most difficult of questions: what does it mean to be good?
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I too found this book a little disappointing! I've read all his others and was looking forward to reading this one, however it never really gripped me. The plot seemed to swing about, leaving characters like her brother and lover incomplete. The actual idea of the book, what would happen if North London liberals really began wearing their hearts on their sleeves, becoming selfless, giving away their possessions & money and so on, is an interesting one but the trigger for it all, GoodNews, just doesn't seem right somehow. As usual, apart from some duds, the dialog and set pieces were amusing but it wasn't enough in the end.
33 of 35 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This has been one of the most eagerly-awaited books of the year. Nick Hornby's excellent previous novels High Fidelity and About A Boy have left readers looking forward to another high-quality novel. The author's ability to translate apparently ordinary characters and situations into hilarious and observational fiction has been a trademark of his success. So all this only serves to make it more difficult to comprehend how Nick Hornby has now come up with such a lousy book.
The story sounds great - Katie Carr, the story's narrator, is unhappy with her marriage to David. She has become tired of his constantly angry moods. She has decided to end the marriage and she even begins an affair with another man. It is just at this moment that David decides to change his ways and become 'good'. And it's this 'good' word that becomes the theme for the rest of the story. Is Katie a good person? Has David now become a good person? What does it take to be a good person?
The opening two chapters of How To Be Good are pretty solid. There are the usual Hornby trademarks of funny observations and a good pace develops. But things start to go rocky from chapter three and continue to nose dive. A big problem with How To Be Good is that it is just plain ridiculous and annoying. David visits a spiritual healer by the name of GoodNews, to cure his backache. GoodNews then becomes an annoying feature for the rest of the book. He moves into the marital home and David becomes a convert. Before long, Katie has to watch whilst her husband and GoodNews embark on a number of 'good' campaigns, such as giving away their money and possessions. They even approach their neighbours in the expectation that they'll take in homeless people so they too can be good. And, naturally, their neighbours are just as keen to be saintly and so some agree to the idea.
Hornby writes okay from a woman's viewpoint and Katie should have been a truely likable character if she hadn't been allowed to fall into the category of doormat. The whole story is a circus of unconvincing and very unfunny events. GoodNews uses his mystical power to cure various ailments. David joins in with many 'good' deeds that are simply insane. Katie has to lie back and accept the fact that homeless and unstable people are going to be popping in and out of her home from now on, because doing so is a 'good' thing. Katie's two children, Tom and Molly, take sides with whoever is their favourite parent. To be fair, Tom adopts a realistic enough attitude and resents the entire 'let's all go mad' lifestyle. However, Molly is another character who behaves as only a fictional character ever could. Katie allows her daughter a level of authority within the home that is completely unrealistic.
There are some okay moments - flashes of wit that are undeniably Hornby-quality. But they're too brief and too rare. In summary, How To Be Good is a silly, unrealistic and mostly unfunny book and to have to say that about a Nick Hornby novel is unexpected.
A massive disappointment.
20 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I'm afraid I found How to be Good very disappointing - was Nick Hornby on the third of a three book deal? The central character was 1 dimensional and uninteresting, the plot was thin, and the whole thing was extremely dull. In the end it just petered out, with no conclusion or resolution for any of the characters.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
First Nick Hornby book and I think I picked the wrong one
I admit to abandoning this at around a quarter of the way through the book, which I never do. I really liked the concept for the book, but after several chapters of what felt like... Read more
Published 4 days ago by varmond
Absolute rubbish
Started with an affair. Which went nowhere. Started with an interesting husband who became boring. Started with an interesting woman who became a doormat. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Mrs. E. Mills
Not much of a plot but plenty of ideas
Well, I think it is okay. The characters aren't particularly likeable (why should they be?) but they are certainly recognisable for this liberal Guardianista at least. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Fever Few
All a bit New Labour
Promised a lot.
Looked great to start with.
All fell to pieces.
Realised it was a con.
Looked great to start with.
All fell to pieces.
Realised it was a con.
Published 9 months ago by Jonathan Overton
TO LAUGH OR TO CRY?
GP Katie Carr contemplates divorcing the permanent sneer that is husband David - the bile that fills his weekly newspaper column unacceptable at home. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Mr. D. L. Rees
Utter drivel
It has dreary yet unrealistic characters (David's sudden complete change of character after spending two days with GoodNews is never satisfactorily explained), and completely... Read more
Published 19 months ago by andyt
Not what I was expecting of Hornby
Last week my friend lent me `How to be good'. Again, Hornby approaches a difficult subject, namely marriage breakdown, with some wit and humour and yes of course there are still... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Louise
Not one of Hornby's best...
Not great. The story of a guy who's always cynical, negative and angry, all of sudden becoming an overbearing do gooder is hard to believe. Read more
Published 22 months ago by madaboutbooks
Why not just go straight to video, Nick?
There is a passage in this book where Hornby lists all the things David (one of the protagonists) and a mate hate. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Mr. Rob A. Barklamb
So so ....
I grabbed this book in Heathrow Airport while i was about to board the plane to States. I finished this book in two weeks just before i was boarding the plane back to London. Read more
Published 23 months ago by SB
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