NICK HORNBY SONGBOOK

San Francisco, CA: McSweeney's Books, 2002. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. Fine/No Dust Jacket, As Issued.. San Francisco, CA: McSweeney's Books, 2002. Hardcover. Fine/None, As Issued. First Edition/First Printing. 147 pages. The author's collection of essays and prose-poems on music. One of the best books on popular music ever written in our time. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with the Softcover Edition. Published in a small and limited one-time-only print run as a hardcover original only that sold out shortly after publication. The First Edition is now rare. A brilliant production by Marcel Dzama and Alysha Naples: Regular-sized volume format. Pictorial hard boards with titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Text by Nick Hornby. Original art by Marcel Dzama. CD containing 11 selections attached on the inside back endcover. Printed on archival stock paper in Iceland to the highest standards. Without DJ, as issued. Presents Nick Hornby's "Songbook". An instant hit. Still the best book on popular music ever written in our time, by an ardent fan who is also a brilliant writer. With the exception of Marcel Dzama's "The Berlin Years" (which is an Artist Book after all), this is also the single best book published by McSweeney's in terms of its production values. Highly personal and idiosyncratic, Hornby is singularly qualified to write a book about popular music, having written the novel, "High Fidelity", which became the basis of a fine film (with John Cusack). He has also written music criticism for The New Yorker Magazine. The personal essays on music in "Nick Hornby Songbook" pop off the page with the immediacy and passion of an artfully arranged mixed tape. But then, who better to riff on his favorite songs than the author of that literary music-lover's delight, "High Fidelity"? "And mostly all I have to say about these songs is that I love them and want to sing along to them and force other people to listen to them and get cross when these other people don't like them as much as I do" (Nick Hornby). Apart from the indispensable accompanying CD, Hornby's pitch-perfect prose is also enhanced by the quirkily beautiful art of the brilliant Canadian artist Marcel Dzama. An absolute "must-have" title for Nick Hornby and Marcel Dzama collectors. This copy is very prominently, neatly, and beautifully signed in black pen-marker on the title page by Nick Hornby. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a great book. As far as we know, this is the only such signed copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Nick Hornby signed very few copies through McSweeney's only. Copies available online have serious flaws, are the Softcover Edition, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare signed copy thus. Nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism in 2003, the first book by McSweeney's nominated in the hotly contested category. Winner of the E. M. Forster Award from the Academy of Arts and Letters. Two of the finest writer/artists of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER NICK HORNBY TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0971904774.