I caught Nick Hornby reading from his new book at Barnes & Noble the other day. Hornby doesn't look much like John Cusack (in fact, he resembles Todd Louiso), but as my friend observed, he's a perfect version of...well, himself. Very funny guy. I was tempted to harrass Hornby during the Q&A session, like I did with Norman Mailer a few years back, but decided against it. High points included:

1. Hornby on whether his international success has caused him to tailor his books for a global audience, rather than a British one: "Yes, there's much less pickled herring."

2. Hornby on jokes that only a British audience will understand: "There are times when I realize that a certain joke will require a forty-five minute discussion with my American editor. It isn't really worth it."

3. Hornby on William Shatner: All right, I'm not going to quote Hornby directly, but he did tell a lovingly polished anecdote about writing a song for the album that Ben Folds produced for William Shatner, which led Shatner—who had concluded that Hornby was a great British poet—to send him an e-mail with an attachment containing dozens of song ideas for Hornby "to polish into something." According to Hornby, the song itself features Aimee Mann on background vocals while Shatner does "his declaiming thing."

Anyway, his new book sounds like an interesting departure, and he read it very amusingly, so I may check it out soon. One last note: before he began to sign copies of his novel, Hornby announced that he was glad to write personal inscriptions, but no top five lists. (Apparently he's asked for these rather often...)