High Fidelity

Is it possible to share your life with someone whose record collection is incompatible with your own? Can people have terrible taste and still be worth knowing? Do songs about broken hearts and misery and loneliness mess up your life if consumed in excess? For Rob Fleming, thirty-five years old, a pop addict and owner of a failing record shop, these are the sort of questions that need an answer, and soon. His girlfriend has just left him. Can he really go on living in a poky flat surrounded by vinyl and CDs or should he get a real home, a real family and a real job? Perhaps most difficult of all, will he ever be able to stop thinking about life in terms of the All Time Top Five bands, books, films, songs – even now that he’s been dumped again, the top five break-ups? Memorable, sad and very, very funny, this is the truest book you will ever read about the things that really matter.

Rob Fleming is a London  record store owner in his 30s whose girlfriend, Laura, has just left him. At the record shop — named Championship Vinyl — Rob and his employees Dick and Barry spend their free moments discussing mix-tape aesthetics and constructing "top-five" lists of anything that demonstrates their knowledge of music.

Rob, recalling his five most memorable break-ups, sets about getting in touch with the former girlfriends. Eventually, Rob's re-examination of his failed relationships and the death of Laura's father bring the two of them back together. Their relationship is cemented by the launch of a new purposefulness to Rob's life in the revival of his disc jockey career.

Also, realising that his fear of commitment (a result of his fear of death of those around him) and his tendency to act on emotion are responsible for his continuing desires to pursue new women, Rob makes a symbolic commitment to Laura.

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I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Nick Hornby provided some great insight into the insecurity in relationships and of getting older. I found myself relating to Rob a little more than I would have liked.

The humour is also great in this book. I laughed out loud on numerous occasions and then had to try and explain it to my boyfriend. He didn't appreciate it as much as I did.

I was a little ashamed that I didn't get many of the musical references. I consider myself a connoisseur of off the wall music, but it must be the time gap from the late 80s - early 90s to now.

I highly recommend this book!

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www.smartbookworms.co.uk/high_fidelity/

You can either download the full eBook for 49p or try the free sample of the first few chapters...