A collection of Nick Hornby’s popular music articles from the New Yorker, reissued to go alongside his essays on reading, The Complete Polysyllabic Spree

‘I decided that I wanted to write a little book of essays about songs I loved … Songs are what I listen to, almost to the exclusion of everything else.’

In his first non-fiction work since Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby writes about 31 songs that either have some great significance in his life - or are just songs that he loves. He discusses, among other things, guitar solos and losing your virginity to a Rod Stewart song and singers whose teeth whistle and the sort of music you hear in Body Shop.

‘The soundtrack to his life … a revealing insight into one of Britain’s most popular writers’ Evening Standard