Nick Hornby

Writer

Nick Hornby is the author of High Fidelity, About a Boy, and other novels of early-21st-century British manhood. Hornby's first book, Fever Pitch (1992), described his obsession with the football team Arsenal, and made him a literary star in the United Kingdom. His subsequent novels, High Fidelity (1995) and About a Boy (1998), sealed his reputation worldwide as a crafty observer (and sometime victim) of pop music and pop culture. In addition to his novels, Hornby has written non-fiction for magazines, including pop music criticism for The New Yorker. Hornby's books have also been made into successful movies: Fever Pitch (1997) starred Colin Firth, High Fidelity (2002) was relocated from England to the United States and starred John Cusack and About a Boy (2002) starred Hugh Grant. His other books include How to Be Good (2001), Long Way Down (2005) and the musical reverie 31 Songs (2003).

Extra credit: Fever Pitch was also remade in the U.S. as a 2005 film starring Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore, with baseball's Boston Red Sox replacing the Arsenal Gunners as the team in question... Hornby's son Danny (b. 1993) is autistic, and in 1997 Hornby co-founded TreeHouse, an educational charity for children with autism.

Other writers of Hornby's era include William Gibson, Gore Vidal and Alice Walker.