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How to Be Good | 
 enlarge | Author: Nick Hornby
Publisher: Riverhead Trade
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $13.99 (100%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  291 reviews
Sales Rank: 112822
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.7 x 0.9
ISBN: 1573229326
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9781573229326
ASIN: 1573229326
Publication Date: April 30, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com 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
Product Description
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)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 286 more reviews...
 I'm so relieved to see the other bad reviews! September 17, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
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 joy to anyone.
It's okay--good for vacations or reading breaks August 22, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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 all right book. I read it in less than 24 hours and its a good break from the Faulkner novels I've been reading. The ending is a bit of a disappointment atop everything else. It sounds like I hate it, but I don't. It, for me, is reminiscent to fluff reading, which has its merits from time to time!
The concept reminded me of Catherine Ryan Hyde's book, Pay it Forward. Although I like her book better.
I'm going to give reading High Fidelity a go as it seems this book seems to get many 3-star reviews, whereas HF does not.
Funny in places, but not terrific July 14, 2008
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
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 monologues, where she unflinchingly examines her soul, even though she is not sure that she has one. Her life is turned upside down by the intrusion of a Mr. Goodnews, a miracle working guru, who brings about a radical change in her husband's personality. This leads to some fascinating and truly hilarious scenes. I found myself laughing out loud. I recommended this book to my family several times, and I read it every chance I got.
The author gently pokes fun at the main character, a basically kind, upper middle class white person, who her husband calls "a typical joyless liberal." Life punctures her hypocrisies one by one. She admits that she really does little to help others, although she knows that she should. When her husband lays out a plan to actually help the homeless, she is dragged along kicking and screaming. Her husband changes from an angry, insensitive misanthrope into a sensitive, caring, generous man, and she is completely creeped out by this. She ends up in the middle of her kitchen, shouting "F--- the homeless!" in front of her parents and children. That is what charity can do to you.
The humor arises from the personalities and the plot, which are artfully constructed. Hornby is a skillful writer. Nevertheless, the book is too long. The action begins to wind down before the final page. In the end, the protagonist stares out into the void and believes that "there's nothing out there at all." I found the ending so disappointing that I retracted my recommendation. In spite of all of its artfulness, the story goes from nothing to nothing, albeit with some good laughs in between.
 Makes me want to be good... or at least better June 26, 2008
5 out of 11 found this review helpful
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 facetious when I say that this novel does make me want to be a better person while still arguing all the reasons why maybe I shouldn't be. Or should be. Or shouldn't... It's a poignant and thought-provoking novel that leaves its reader with a bittersweet aftertaste. Fantastic!
not very good, ... really! June 12, 2008
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
'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. Bad.
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