Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Search - How to Be Good

How to Be Good
How to Be Good
Author: Nick Hornby
"Hornby is a writer who dares to be witty, intelligent, and emotionally generous all at once." (The New York Times Book Review) — How to Be Good is a story for our times-a humorous but uncompromising look at what it takes, in this day and age, to have the courage of our convictions. In his third novel, Nick Hornby, whom The New ...  more » named "the maestro of the male confessional," has reinvented himself as Katie-the consummate liberal, urban mom-a doctor from North London whose world is being turned on its ear by the outrageous spiritual transformation of her husband, David. How to Be Good has the ironic, funny, startlingly accurate take on our modern selves and our modern world that has become Hornby's turf as a chronicler of our popular culture-but this time he tackles it all with more richness and depth, and carries his readers beyond the comic confines of the novel to a bigger truth about themselves. It's a story about how to wreck your marriage, how to help the homeless, how not to raise your kids, how to find religion . . . and how to be good.
Info icon
ISBN-13: 9781573221931
ISBN-10: 1573221937
Publication Date: 7/2001
Pages: 305
Rating:
  • Currently 3.4/5 Stars.
 80

3.4 stars, based on 80 ratings
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Book Type: Hardcover
Other Versions: Paperback, Audio Cassette, Audio CD
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Top Member Book Reviews

reviewed How to Be Good on + 7 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 5
How he does it, we may never know... but Nick Hornby has crawled far into the recesses of the female mind and from it produced a winning novel of love, life, and the inevitable conflict brought to us by our own responsibilities. Our anti-heroin grabs hold of the most sympathetic parts of us and rips them to shreds, only to piece them back together again with precision and a smile. I finished it and started it over immediately.
astream avatar reviewed How to Be Good on + 38 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 5
Laugh out loud funny - I hardly want to part with this book!
reviewed How to Be Good on + 18 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
A bit different than Hornby's other novels. Still just as funny and witty, this one struggles with an ethical dilemma of what to do when your life partner suddenly decides to start acting like an angel.
reviewed How to Be Good on + 10 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
How much is too much to have when others have less? This story is a fascinating and funny account of what would happen if your spouse suddenly wanted to do good in the world - in a big way.
Turns your ideas of everyday life upside down.
reviewed How to Be Good on + 32 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
An interesting and entertaining parable; how good is "good?" What happens to your "goodness" (if you are a relatively "good" person) when your spouse has an epiphane and becomes "saintly?"
Read All 46 Book Reviews of "How to Be Good"

Please Log in to Rate these Book Reviews

reviewed How to Be Good on + 5 more book reviews
fantastic book. This book and "fever pitch" are Nick Hornby's very best.
reviewed How to Be Good on
Good book
reviewed How to Be Good on
I had a rocky time getting into this one. But once it settled in to the Brit's humor (sorry folks), I had a great time! The dialogue here is soooooo good it just carries you and the premise of the story is, well, so absurd it's almost believable. Can't wait to read another Nick Hornby!
reviewed How to Be Good on + 6 more book reviews
Decent read, witty and funny.
reviewed How to Be Good on + 37 more book reviews
I just finished reading this and have mixed feelings about it. While the humor of the world's angriest man becoming a kinder, gentler soul over night was not lost on me, the story of his wife's unhappiness and willingness to settle combined with the overall mood of hopelessness left me feeling empty. I've enjoyed Hornby's other books, but this one didn't do it for me.


Genres: