BOOKS BOUGHT:
- Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes—Mary M. Talbot and Bryan Talbot
- The Revolution Was Televised: The Cops, Crooks, Slingers and Slayers Who Changed TV Drama Forever—Alan Sepinwall
- Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece—Ashley Kahn
- Binocular Vision—Edith Pearlman
- The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll: The Search for Dare Wright—Jean Nathan
- Artie Shaw, King of the Clarinet: His Life and Times—Tom Nolan
- Alys, Always—Harriet Lane
BOOKS READ:
- Love Goes to Buildings on Fire: Five Years in New York That Changed Music Forever—Will Hermes
- Artie Shaw, King of the Clarinet: His Life and Times—Tom Nolan
- Alys, Always—Harriet Lane
- The Interrogative Mood—Padgett Powell
INT. BEDROOM. NIGHT.
A man—handsome, mid-fifties, balding, or even bald, if Bruce Willis is the only actor available—lies in bed reading a biography of Artie Shaw. His probably young and probably pneumatic wife is lying next to him, bored and a little petulant, because he is so gripped by the book that he’s paying her no attention. (This guy has no kids, by the way. That’s how he gets so much reading done. And also he has this incredible bedroom, with buttons that make lights dim and music come on and cinema screens drop from the ceiling and all sorts.) This is really weird, like something out of a science-fiction film, because Artie Shaw was a bandleader and a clarinettist, and this guy, the Bruce Willis guy, doesn’t really like jazz, as far as we know. So immediately the audience is gripped and all like, WTF?
CUT TO
FLASHBACK—EXT. HOTEL POOL. MARRAKECH. DAY.
The same guy (Willis? Depp? Pitt?) is lying by a swimming pool in the North African sun. He’s reading Will Hermes’s book about New York music in the mid-’70s, Love Goes to Buildings on Fire. The mystery deepens. How has the Hermes book led to the Shaw biography? In just a few short weeks? Hold on to your hats! It’s going to be a bumpy ride!
Maybe I have overplayed the extraordinary cultural journey that I have made since the last time I wrote in these pages; maybe the story of me sitting by a pool and/or in bed, reading and/or listening to my iPod, would not, after all, make for an entertaining but intelligent multiplex cinematic experience. I’m just trying to convey excitement, so shoot me.
Love Goes to Buildings on Fire was my holiday reading over a short winter break. (In Marrakech! I wasn’t even changing locale to make it more cinematic!) Hermes’s book is a prime example of the sub-genre that has...
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contributor
contributor
Nick Hornby is the bestselling author of eight novels, including High Fidelity, About a Boy, and, most recently, Just Like You. He has also published several works of nonfiction including his ground-breaking debut, Fever Pitch, and has written numerous award-winning screenplays for film and television including Brooklyn, Wild, and State of the Union.
