Hornby, Nick How to be Good ISBN 13: 9780140287011

How to be Good - Softcover

9780140287011: How to be Good
View all copies of this ISBN edition:
 
 
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?

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

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

Review:
Hornby is a writer who dares to be witty, intelligent and emotionally generous all at once. "The New York Times Book Review""

"Hornby is a writer who dares to be witty, intelligent and emotionally generous all at once."--The New York Times Book Review"
A darkly funny and thought-provoking ride."--USA Today

"A bitingly clever novel of ideas...[a] profound, worrying, hilarious, sophisticated, compulsive novel."--The Sunday Times (UK)
"Daringly different."--New York Daily News

"How to be good? How to be bloody marvelous more like."--The Mail on Sunday(UK)
"Breezily hilarious and thought-provoking at the same time."--New York Magazine

"Seriousness spiked with humor...a page-turner."--The Washington Times

"A thorny parable...very funny and shrewd."--Salon.com


"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

  • PublisherPenguin
  • Publication date2002
  • ISBN 10 0140287019
  • ISBN 13 9780140287011
  • BindingPaperback
  • Number of pages256
  • Rating

Shipping: £ 19.77
From U.S.A. to United Kingdom

Destination, rates & speeds

Add to Basket

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9781573229326: How to Be Good

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  ISBN 13:  9781573229326
Publisher: Riverhead Books, 2002
Softcover

  • 9780241969823: How to be Good

    Penguin, 2014
    Softcover

  • 9781573221931: How to Be Good

    Riverh..., 2001
    Hardcover

  • 9780241969915: How to be Good

    Penguin, 2014
    Softcover

  • 9780670888238: How to be Good

    Viking..., 2001
    Hardcover

Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace

Stock Image

Nick Hornby
Published by Penguin Books (2001)
ISBN 10: 0140287019 ISBN 13: 9780140287011
New Paperback Quantity: 1
Seller:
The Media Foundation
(BEAVERTON, OR, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Book is in great condition.Older cover version. Pages are crisp and clean, binding tight. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed. Orders received before 3PM PT typically ship same day. All profits support the non-profit community. Seller Inventory # mon0000054497

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 20.77
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: £ 19.77
From U.S.A. to United Kingdom
Destination, rates & speeds