Juliet, Naked

By: Nick Hornby

Narrated by: Bill Irwin

Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

From the beloved New York Times best-selling author, a quintessential Nick Hornby tale of music, superfandom, and the truths and lies we tell ourselves about life and love.

Annie loves Duncan - or thinks she does. Duncan loves Annie, but then, all of a sudden, he doesn't. Duncan really loves Tucker Crowe, a reclusive Dylanish singer-songwriter who stopped making music 10 years ago. Annie stops loving Duncan, and starts getting her own life. In doing so, she initiates an e-mail correspondence with Tucker, and a connection is forged between two lonely people who are looking for more out of what they've got.

Tucker's been languishing (and he's unnervingly aware of it), living in rural Pennsylvania with what he sees as his one hope for redemption amid a life of emotional and artistic ruin - his young son, Jackson. But then there's also the new material he's about to release to the world: an acoustic, stripped-down version of his greatest album, Juliet - entitled, Juliet, Naked.

What happens when a washed-up musician looks for another chance? And miles away, a restless, childless woman looks for a change? Juliet, Naked is a powerfully engrossing, humblingly humorous novel about music, love, loneliness, and the struggle to live up to one's promise.

©2009 Nick Hornby (P)2009 Penguin

Critic reviews

"Charming... Nobody captures the zealous devotion and bizarre intensity of amateur music snobs better.” (The Washington Post)

“Hornby seems, as ever, fascinated by the power of music to guide the heart, and in this very funny, very charming novel, he makes you see it matters.” (The New York Times Book Review)

"Rich and perceptive." (The Wall Street Journal)

Brilliant!

I thouroughly enjoyed every bit of this book. The narrators were all fantastic. The characters were so well drawn I felt like I knew them all by the end of the book. It was witty and funny and serious and sad all at the same time. It was an all around excellent effort on Hornby's part. Loved it. Can't say that enought. I'm going to check out his other work now too.

Missed the characters terribly after finishing

I liked this novel a great deal -had never read anything by Hornby before but it made me want to read other things by him- and the narration with the English and American accents makes it even more enjoyable. I felt the author understood and explained the different characters very well, especially the woman (which surprised me) and the musician. There were many amusing parts, the dialogue and the feelings and motivations of the characters felt true, and I almost felt I became friends with (or at least would want to, in the case of the woman and the older man-musician) the characters. At the end, I wished the book could have been two or three times longer, so as to not have to say goodbye to the characters.

enjoyed this

I like Nick Hornby's other books and enjoyed this one. The alternation among narrators was very effective.

Brilliant!

Hornby's wit and realistic, engaging take on relationships and on aging are as appealing as ever. But the outstanding acting ability/quality of the narration took this to another level: highly recommended!

How to get out of a rut

Hornby has lots to say about people, life, and screwed up relationships. Perhaps more so than ever in this book. "She was a young woman and as a consequence didn't subscribe to the idea that monogamous sexual relationships between men and women were doomed, pointless, miserable, hopeless; she'd get there, he felt, but not for a while yet." Good story and good narration.

Really enjoyable, and one problematic accent

I'm slightly puzzled, because this book is listed as narrated by Bill Irwin, but there are in fact three narrators. There's another version of this book listed, but I definitely have this one (I clicked through from My Library).

In any case, it's a very readable, pacey book with many of the usual Hornby themes--the banality of relationships, fame and its temptations, music fandom and so forth.

The production is very enjoyable, save for one issue. The way the audio work has been directed requires that each of the narrators do both American and British accents. One of the male American narrators really struggles with the British accent, and to me at least, it's a distraction. I'm no expert on accents, but I've lived in the British Isles and North America, so I'm at least familiar with both.

In any case, it's a relatively minor issue, and perhaps just a personal foible.

Laugh out loud funny!

It is rare that a book gets me to laugh (and I don't mean smile) out loud. This one did it on more than one occasion. It's a fast story, and one I couldn't wait to pick up again. I'm off to find another Nick Hornby book!

Loved it!

This was a really fun listen. Everything about it was great.

Listenable . . . not memorable

I do not come with the bias of already knowing and loving Hornby. This is my first of his books and perhaps the last. While the book was somewhat easy to listen to, and downright funny at times, the characters were dull, boring, and easily forgotten.
There was not much of a plot and too much dialogue for my taste. Perhaps if the characters were more developed and one could grow fond of them in any way, this book would deserve a higher rating. If you haven't read Hornby, try one of his more popular books--I wish I did.

Anticlimactic

This book got me back into reading. Loved every minute of it, however I feel like Hornby got distracted midway through the book and lost track of things. The last quarter of the book lacked plot and climax. I'm going to give High Fidelity a try. I'm a huge fan of this writing style, and I thoroughly enjoyed the omniscient point of view.