High Fidelity

It has been said often enough that baby boomers are a television generation, but the very funny novel High Fidelity reminds that in a way they are the record-album generation as well. This funny novel is obsessed with music; Hornby's narrator is an early-thirtysomething English guy who runs a London record store. He sells albums recorded the old-fashioned way--on vinyl--and is having a tough time making other transitions as well, specifically adulthood. The book is in one sense a love story, both sweet and interesting; most entertaining, though, are the hilarious arguments over arcane matters of pop music.

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• About a Boy
• Fever Pitch
• Himself: A Novel
• Knots and Crosses: An Inspector Rebus Novel (Inspector Rebus Novels)
• Trumpet: A Novel
• A Long Way Down
• Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: A Play
• The Commitments
• Altamont: The Rolling Stones, the Hells Angels, and the Inside Story of Rock's Darkest Day