 "A true love story" | 2010-01-06 |
| - Reviewed By VGS from Asker, Norway |
Fever Pitch is mostly about football, but topics such as love and human relations are quite prominent in this well-written book by one of the most popular authors of Great Britain today.
In Fever Pitch we get to know Arsenal and its surroundings through the eyes of a local fan during 30 years. 30 years of both sorrow and happiness. Fever Pitch is therefore a true love story between a club and a local fan. No matter which team you support, this book will capture your heart from the first page. It's funny, compelling, clever, witty and quite sad at the same time, as we follow Nick Hornby's chase for success and everlasting glory for the Gunners. His inspiring view of life is spiced up with facts and of course results from Arsenal games. Hornby has linked his beloved Arsenal's highs and lows to his own personal life and it's a true pleasure to read his outstanding autobiography. Fever Pitch is definitely a great result of Hornby's obsession by football and especially Arsenal. This book shows the fabulous talent Hornby has as an author.
While I read Fever Pitch, I several times laughed out loud and sometimes got sympathy for Hornby. A football fan who lives and dies for his team, will probably know what Hornby has experienced through his life as a huge Gunners-fan.
Nick Hornby is an absolute master writing fascinating and of course exciting novels. His success-novel Fever Pitch is definitely worth reading! Give it a try, and I'll guarantee you'll be hooked already by page one. He mixes his long and sometimes complicated sentences, with some short and very precise ones. I think that is why the book is the best football and comedy book ever written.
If you haven't read this book before, it's high time to do that. If you should pick one book for the weekend, choose Fever Pitch. It's definitely one of the best books I've ever read.
Long live Nick Hornby! |
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| "Make your teenage football obsessed kid read it." | 2009-12-09 |
| - Reviewed By Sloboda navijacima! from Eastleigh |
| So, I was 13 and assuming that the Arsenal fixation that had just taken over my life was just another one of my obsessions, which have come and gone all my life. It wasn't until I delved within the pages of Fever Pitch that I realised everything I felt had been felt before - and this was a great comfort to me. It's also one of the best written books I've ever encountered. Hornby's conversational style meant I never lost the meaning of the book even though some of the words were a little out of my vocabulary league at the time. Don't you just love books that make sense as soon as you are able to read, but make more sense when you pick them up again ten years later, and are therefore full of surprises? This is one such book. Have lost count of how many times I've read it, and everyone I lent it to has enjoyed it except my mum. What was it she didn't like about it again? Oh, here she is, I'll ask her. "I found the film more enjoyable, I find Nick Hornby quite hard to follow. I think I'm looking for a plot!" So if you like novels that have a clear beginning, middle and end, it might not be for you. If you like reflective writing which affirms and strengthens you - and is unbelievably funny in places, and puts an involuntary stupid smile on your face in others - then read it. Finally, I agree with the other reviewers that anyone can read this book. However, I do think it works best if you're a new football fan. Hornby himself came to the game late-ish, at eleven, and was surprised by the passions it inspired. I think some people whose dads took them to football when they were three don't really get it, because it's telling them what they already know. I'll shut up now. Read the book. |
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| "Fever Pitch wasn't just a movie" | 2009-09-02 |
| - Reviewed By Jason Kirkfield from Rocky Mountain High |
Before the Jimmy Fallon/Drew Barrymore/Boston Red Sox romantic comedy of 2005, Colin Firth starred in a soccer (football) film from 1997. That itself was of course based on this novel by Nick Hornby.
You don't have to be an Arsenal fan to enjoy the book, and thankfully you don't even have to be British. Yes, of course there were specific statistical references that went over my head, but the important concepts in the book come through (to be specific: loneliness, and the efforts to fill that void through either family or fanship). So do the many nuggets of truth, especially about youth.
My favorite passage:
"Sport doesn't allow you to dream in the way that writing or acting or painting or middle-management does: I knew when I was eleven that I would never play for Arsenal. Eleven is too young to know something as awful as that." p.244
Some more of my favorites:
"The natural state of the football fan is bitter disappointment, no matter what the score." p.20
"Of course I feel nostalgic, even if I am longing for a time which never really belonged to us." p.31
"After my initial alarm I grew to love the movement, the way I was thrown toward the pitch and suck back again." p.75
"You stand there in the shadowed dark looking down into the light, on to the brilliant lush green and it's as if you are in a cinema watching a film about another and more exotic country." p.185
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| "I am not a football fan..." | 2009-06-27 |
| - Reviewed By Suresh from germany |
but I am astounded by what Nick Hornby has achieved here...I am a football fan every 4 years since 1982 when I read about the world cup for the first time...I naturally became a Brazil fan but I was not obsessed with football in any sense of the term except during those 4 to 7 matches Brazil would play every four years.
So, this book is not for football fans, it is for everyone. You dont need to know who played for Arsenal in 1972, but you can glimpse a real life experiencing those football matches...that is really what this book is about. It is about growing up and about life.
Secondly, it is hilariously funny and beautiful. I laugh out loud and feel sad simultaneously when I am reading this. I dont know why.
Read it. You will treasure it.
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| "Not Just for Arsenal Supporters" | 2009-01-02 |
| - Reviewed By C. Kan from Syosset, New York, USA |
Hornby's novel has a timeless feel to it. Even though it captures key moments from his coming-of-age and experiences supporting Arsenal, the story could be about any supporter supporting any club. There is something about the novel that makes the reader feel that this novel will probably be relevant for years to come as football supporters in the future will likely experience the same emotions that Hornby describes. Further, the novel is able to describe the life and mentality of a football supporter, a passion and dedication that is universal regardless of place and time (since the invention and mass marketing of the game, at least).
If you are a football supporter, you will be able to relate to Hornby's book. If you know of someone who loves his/her football and lives for it, you will be able to see bits of your friend/relative through Hornby. Even if you do not know of football or care for it, Hornby's novel is a good read that will encapsulate you. Just don't let it make an Arsenal supporter of you! |
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| "Even if You Hate the Gunners" | 2008-08-27 |
| - Reviewed By James Burns |
Brillant book... Almost wet my pants a few times. I relate a million percent to the obsession...
Its football... Its my life... And I am American... |
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