Why am I passionate about this?
I grew up in the eighties, and that means I grew up watching movies such as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, and Say Anything. Thirty years after watching those movies, some iconic scenes have stuck with me: the characters of The Breakfast Club sliding across the hallway to Simple Mindsā song āDonāt You Forget About Me,ā John Cusack holding the boombox over his head while blaring Peter Gabrielās āIn Your Eyes,ā and the Psychedelic Furs āPretty in Pinkā song playing on the soundtrack of a movie by the same name. The books in this list do a lot with those same ingredients of heartbreak, music, and hope that the characters who so often remind me of myself might find love.
Bill's book list on romantic comedy from the 80s
Why did Bill love this book?
The actor John Cusack brought me to this movie, and I read the book after the movie and loved it. One of the key differences between the movie and the book is that the movie is set in Chicago, and the book in North London. As someone who grew up in the ā80s, I started with Cusack as the nerdy sidekick in Sixteen Candles and became obsessed with his Lloyd Dobler character in Say Anything; you know, the guy who dressed in a trench coat and held a boom box over his head outside a girlās window.
The narrator of this novel is a record shop owner in London named Rob, and he starts off with his desert island, all-time, top five most memorable breakups, in chronological order. When weāre in the record shop that Rob owns, the guys are always making lists: top 5 guitar solos, top 5ā¦
5 authors picked High Fidelity as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
"I've always loved Nick Hornby, and the way he writes characters and the way he thinks. It's funny and heartbreaking all at the same time."āZoĆ« Kravitz
From the bestselling author of Funny Girl, About a Boy, A Long Way Down and Dickens and Prince, a wise and hilarious novel about love, heartbreak, and rock and roll.
Rob is a pop music junkie who runs his own semi-failing record store. His girlfriend, Laura, has just left him for the guy upstairs, and Rob is both miserable and relieved. After all, could he have spent his life with someone who has aā¦