You know how you subscribe to magazines with the best of intentions and then they start arriving and things go sideways and suddenly you have a stack of unread New Yorkers hidden under your bed? Frankly, I am not a magazine reader; they stress me out. But there is one magazine I will read cover-to-cover and it's The Believer, a quarterly publication that's an eclectic mix of pop culture articles and interviews. I'm enthusiastic about it, but that's not what I'm here to tell you about. Consider it a bonus recommendation.
My real enthusiasm is the reason I picked up The Believer in the first place: a brief, recurring column called ”Stuff I've Been Reading”, which has been running for more than two decades and is written by the author Nick Hornby. Now, I was not a particular fan of Nick Hornby when I started reading his collected columns more than a decade ago. I think the only other book of his I've read (to this day) is High Fidelity. But I have read five hundred-plus pages of his thoughts on what he's reading, some of them twice.
Maybe it makes sense that I, a reader, love reading about another reader. And maybe you also expect me to be a voracious consumer of book reviews. I am not, though I have the sense I ought to be. I don't actively seek out book reviews and I'm not drawn to Hornby because we hold similar interests—the Venn Diagram of our reading tastes has a very small middle.
What I'm drawn to is the idiosyncratic nature of the column, the feeling of getting to know a reader so thoroughly, that reader's openness to everything and anything, and the sheer joy and pleasure he finds in reading. I enjoy that Hornby isn't reading particular books with the goal of writing about them. He wasn't assigned these books, so his words feel more organic and intimate than your average book review. And, frankly, he's just a good writer; you can tell he's been doing this for decades. Also he's very funny. Honestly, my love for ”Stuff I've Been Reading” is all about his, well, enthusiasm!
“Stuff I've Been Reading” has been collected into four individual volumes and one omnibus (Ten Years in the Tub) all of which have long been out of print, despite the column's continuation. This is why, despite thinking about this column regularly, I rarely recommend the books. Now, imagine my delight when I was reading The Believer and came across an ad for Rosamond Lehmann in Vegas, a brand new collection of ”Stuff I've Been Reading”. And that, dear reader, is what I am enthusiastic about today. If you're looking for a low-stakes, low-stress book that you can easily dip in and out of, one that will surely lead you to many other books, I can't recommend Rosamond Lehmann in Vegas enough.
Emma Kaas co-owns the Norwich Bookstore with her husband, Sam Kaas. When she’s not at the bookstore, you’ll most likely find her reading books, baking bread, tinkering with spreadsheets, or pulling tarot cards.