High Fidelity
Nick Hornby
253 pages
published in 1995

The library card for High Fidelity would read something like this:

An aging record shop owner has a premature mid life crisis due to his girlfriend living him and as a results revisits and reexamines his past.

And I would never, ever had read it. Which would've been a pity, since this novel is so much more then that. Fortunately my girlfriend pushed this on me, knowing I would like it. As indeed, I did. Yes, this is a novel about a sad, record obsessed almost middle aged man, whose girlfriend has left him and no, I never ever would've read this sort of novel even five years ago, but I'm glad I did.

You see, apart from being hilariously funny at times, it's also (depressingly) recognisable! Sure, I've never been into records the way Rod Fleming was, but I know the feeling from collecting comics, I know the utter obssesiveness of it all. I know how it feels to make a really neat tape as a gift for your girlfriend, though with me it was trying to find the perfect book for her birthday...

High Fidelity all in all is never dull or embarassing, stays both funny and humane throughout and has quite an upbeat resolution too. Recommended for collecting obsessive nerds of all stripes.