<div>In this latest collection of essays following The Polysyllabic Spree, critic and author Nick Hornby continues the feverish survey of his swollen bookshelves, offering funny, intelligent, and unblinkered account of the stuff he's been reading. Ranging from the middlebrow to the highbrow (with unrepenting dips into the lowbrow), Hornby's dispatches from his nightstand table serve as useful guides to the contemporary literary scene. Purchasing more books than he can read in the month allotted to him, Hornby nevertheless manages to speed through an impressive amount of material, and his choices often strike into deep, odd places. Hornby's book reviews are suffused with wit, ire, and loving insight. He can be trusted to point out which books are ridiculously unfunny, which books can be read incognito for their naughtiness, and most urgently, which books can bring themselves "all the way through the long march to your soul."</div>