How to Be Good
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Baker & Taylor
Katie, a liberal, urban mother and doctor from North London, finds her life turned upside down when her husband, David, undergoes an outrageous spiritual transformation, in a hilarious novel about marriage, parenthood, religion, and morality. By the author ofHigh Fidelity … More »
Katie, a liberal, urban mother and doctor from North London, finds her life turned upside down when her husband, David, undergoes an outrageous spiritual transformation, in a hilarious novel about marriage, parenthood, religion, and morality. By the author of
Baker & Taylor
Katie, a liberal, urban mother and doctor from North London, finds her life turned upside down when her husband, David, undergoes an outrageous spiritual transformation, in a hilarious novel about marriage, parenthood, religion, and morality. By the author ofHigh Fidelity and About a Boy. 75,000 first printing.
Blackwell North Amer
'Listen: I'm not a bad person. I'm a doctor. One of the reasons I wanted to become a doctor was because I thought it would be a good - as in Good, rather than exciting or well-paid or glamorous - thing to do...Anyway. I'm a good person, a doctor, and I'm lying in a hotel bed with a man I don't really know very well called Stephen, and I've just asked my husband for a divorce.'
According to her own complex moral calculations, Katie Carr has earned her affair. She's a doctor, after all, and doctors are decent people, and on top of that her husband David is the self-styled Angriest Man in Holloway. When David suddenly becomes good, however - properly, maddeningly, give-away-all-his-money good - Katie's sums no longer add up, and she is forced to ask herself some very hard questions.
Baker
& Taylor
Katie, a liberal, urban mother and doctor from North London, finds her life turned upside-down when her husband, David, undergoes an outrageous spiritual transformation.
« Less
Katie, a liberal, urban mother and doctor from North London, finds her life turned upside down when her husband, David, undergoes an outrageous spiritual transformation, in a hilarious novel about marriage, parenthood, religion, and morality. By the author of
Blackwell North Amer
'Listen: I'm not a bad person. I'm a doctor. One of the reasons I wanted to become a doctor was because I thought it would be a good - as in Good, rather than exciting or well-paid or glamorous - thing to do...Anyway. I'm a good person, a doctor, and I'm lying in a hotel bed with a man I don't really know very well called Stephen, and I've just asked my husband for a divorce.'
According to her own complex moral calculations, Katie Carr has earned her affair. She's a doctor, after all, and doctors are decent people, and on top of that her husband David is the self-styled Angriest Man in Holloway. When David suddenly becomes good, however - properly, maddeningly, give-away-all-his-money good - Katie's sums no longer add up, and she is forced to ask herself some very hard questions.
Baker
& Taylor
Katie, a liberal, urban mother and doctor from North London, finds her life turned upside-down when her husband, David, undergoes an outrageous spiritual transformation.
Imprint:
New York - Riverhead Books
Pages:
305
ISBN:
1573221937, 1573229326
Language:
English
Statement of responsibility:
by Nick Hornby
Characteristics:
305 p. ;,21 cm.
Author (Original Script):
Hornby, Nick
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Add a CommentConsidering the content, a family drama, this book is a surprising page turner. I wound up finishing the final 100 pages, at the expense of other responsibilities, on my day off, just to see how it would end.
from Oprah magazine suggestion
A story about what happens to a 40-something lady in England when she perhaps is having a mid-life crisis, she is wrecking her marriage with an affair, not raising your kids properly, finding religion and all the while trying to be good. Follow her journey through mid-life and see where her decisions take her and how it affects her and her family members and what she learns about them and herself.
How does one go about being a good person? Nick Hornby hilariously addresses that question when David, a formerly cynical newspaper columnist morphs into an excessively altruistic do-gooder, whose new lifestyle alienates his wife and daughter. Narrated by the wife, who likes to think that since she's a doctor, she's a good person, How to Be Good starts off a bit slow, but really takes off when DJ GoodNews enters the picture. A self-professed healer, GoodNews appears to remove David's back pain, and then convinces him to transform his life. David's children are angry when he tells them to give away some of their toys, and his wife is appalled when he wants to open their home to the homeless. Can a marriage survive such goodness? Or will David totally alienate everyone his life, as DJ Goodnews has already done in his own? A funny book that addresses serious questions, How to Be Good is better than good. (Just be patient with the first 50 pages or so, as it doesn’t really hit its stride until DJ GoodNews shows up.) Read-Alike: Hornby's American counterpart is Tom Perrotta.
One of my faves... Love Nick Hornby. :)
Great novel by one of my favorite writers. A little unrealistic at times, but that engaging Hornby voice is there and there's some thinking in here about deep questions.
Book club.