BOOKS BOUGHT:
- This Boy: A Memoir of a Childhood—Alan Johnson
- David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants—Malcolm Gladwell
- Everything I Never Told You—Celeste Ng
- Modernity Britain Book 2: A Shake of the Dice, 1959–62—David Kynaston
- Sin in the Second City—Karen Abbott
- Speedboat—Renata Adler
- Soul Picnic: The Music and Passion of Laura Nyro—Michele Kort
BOOKS READ:
- This Boy: A Memoir of a Childhood —Alan Johnson
- Invincible: Inside Arsenal’s Unbeaten 2003–2004 Season—Amy Lawrence
- Roy: The Official Autobiography of Roy of the Rovers—Roy Race (with Bob Dickens)
- Swing Low: A Life—Miriam Toews
- & Sons—David Gilbert
I have been writing in these pages for a long time now, so I think I have a pretty good idea of who you are. You are a man aged between fifty and sixty-five, born in the Southeast of England—Watford, say, or Basingstoke—called something like Phil or Keith. You started watching football in the 1970s, never missed The Big Match with Brian Moore and Jimmy Hill on Sunday afternoon, and subscribed to Tiger or Lion, as well as Shoot or Goal. You had a Rod Stewart haircut in 1973/74, but you went a bit punkier in 1977. Uncanny, right? (And if none of this applies, then the Believer isn’t the magazine for you. Move along! There’s nothing to see here! Go and read the New Yorker!) Well, have I got a book for you.
I hardly need to tell you that Roy Race played for the Melchester Rovers for thirty-eight years, and that every single game was documented, in enthralling detail, in comic-strip form. Some would argue that this makes him a fictional character, and the Melchester Rovers a fictional team, and I understand the argument. It has merit, in the sense that neither player nor club ever existed, but he was real enough to us, wasn’t he? Well, now Roy Race has written his autobiography, and it’s every bit as action-packed as you might expect from a man who has been kidnapped by terrorists, mostly from Central America, eight times in his career. And…
Oh, hell. Sometimes you just have to hold up your hands and admit defeat. This book is unlikely to be published in the US; in fact, it is more likely to receive a high-profile launch in Vanuatu or East Timor than in your country. And even if you could find it in your local bookshop, and even if you did pick it up and think, Huh, the Believer said this was pretty good, I would probably...
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contributor
contributor
Nick Hornby is the bestselling author of eight novels, including High Fidelity, About a Boy, and, most recently, Just Like You. He has also published several works of nonfiction including his ground-breaking debut, Fever Pitch, and has written numerous award-winning screenplays for film and television including Brooklyn, Wild, and State of the Union.
