Nick Hornby's Short List
The British author of High Fidelity and About a Boy has a new accolade: his script for the postwar drama An Education received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay in addition to the film's nod for Best Picture. Hornby's trip to the U.S. to promote the movie gave him a chance to stock up on DVDs of his favorite American TV shows.
Wired up
I am an obsessive devotee of The Wire. I think it's unbelievable. With kids, by the time I've fed them and put them to bed, there isn't much evening left. An hour of television is perfect. But The Wire is so addictive that I sometimes watch two or three episodes.
Guitar heroes
It Might Get Loud is a documentary about guitarists that's so great--just people like Jimmy Page, the Edge and Jack White talking in great detail about being creative. If you can get people talking specifically about what they do and how they do it, I find that permanently fascinating.
Hard times
David Kynaston has written this huge social history of the U.K. in the immediate postwar years, Austerity Britain, 1945-1951. It was kind of a depressing time. Everyone was so psyched up by the end of the war, and then actually nothing happened except the bombs stopped falling.
Rock 'n' roll, straight up
Drive-By Truckers are intelligent in a way that I really appreciate as a writer. They're just guys being smart in their own space: guitars and drums and big choruses. It's been done before, but they do it well. I've been playing Brighter Than Creation's Dark a lot.
The competition
I hope The Hurt Locker wins Best Picture. I can't remember a war film that has had a greater impact on me.