Nick Hornby is the quintessential New Lad, and the dazzling prose of this, his first novel, inspired reviewers to dizzying heights of laddish hyperbole: "modern fiction's equivalent of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles' Greatest Hits"; "as perfect as an Ian Wright header at the near post"; "made me laugh out loud more than any book I can remember", etc, etc. It is hilarious - devastatingly funny, to be precise - not to mention being permeated with popular music and popular culture of a certain vintage, making it fertile imaginative ground for those who remember, for instance, the game Mousetrap or Leo Sayer's haircut. Hornby's style is as fresh as a newly tossed salad, and High Fidelity is both entertaining and, if you can identify even slightly with a middle aged record shop owner who has managed to mess up his finances as well as his romances, thought provoking.
