Come and talk to author NICK HORNBY about his latest novel, Funny Girl, his previous bestsellers and his exceptional writing career on Wednesday 1st July, 9-10pm

[TillyMumsnetBookClub]

Nick Hornby’s sunny new novel FUNNY GIRL is set in the 1960s, in a burgeoning era of television comedy where old rules are beginning to crumble and a new energy is transforming the scene. A young beauty queen from Blackpool arrives fresh in the big city, changes her name to Sophie Straw and lands a part in a new sitcom, written by comedy aficionados Tony and Bill. Her natural talent captivates an enormous audience and catapaults them all to national stardom. Hornby has always been a master at capturing the zeitgeist, with a knack for pulling out the right detail or the perfect reference. In this novel, he beautifully captures all the exuberance, social upheaval and excitement of the period, suffused with a love for this golden age of light entertainment.

You can find out more on our book of the month page, or take a look at Nick’s own website for the latest updates and info on all his (stunningly redesigned) previous books.

Penguin have very generously offered 50 copies of FUNNY GIRL to give to Mumsnetters. To claim yours, please go to the book of the month page and fill in your details. We’ll post here when the copies have gone. If you’re not lucky enough to bag one of those, you can always get a copy here

We are thrilled and honoured that Nick Hornby will be chatting to us live on Wednesday 1st July, 9-10pm. So whether you have a question about FUNNY GIRL, about any of Nick’s bestselling novels or would like to hear more about Nick’s writing life, please come along and say hello. Look forward to seeing you on Wednesday 1st..

Just finished this. I think it is the best Nick Hornby novel so far.

Like a poster above, I felt completely taken in by it, it seemed so real. The characters were very well written and believable. I got swept away by the plot and the characters, and for the first time in ages found a female character written by a male author sounding believable. It didn't sound like a man writing what he thought a woman would say.

I'm really struggling with this book, about a quarter of the way in and about to give up. I'm not enjoying it, it's too factual and not gripping me at all. I can't feel the characters, I'm not getting involved at all.

I'm part way through this book and really enjoying it. I'd like to ask Nick the following - Being from the area myself (although a child of the 80s not 60s) from quizzing parents / grandparents and my own local knowledge you seem pretty much spot on with all your references about Blackpool (e.g rho hills department store (. Do you have a connection to the area or was it just very thorough research? Also, I'd be interested to know why you chose for Barbara to be from there and what you feel it adds to her character

Do you think women do fandom differently from men? If so, how?

Hi, I am a fan, and I'm currently enjoying Funny Girl (thank you, Mumsnet!). My son, called Nicholas:-), has autism, and I know you have a son with ASD. As a writer personally affected by ASD, what do you think of the bestselling books where the central character has high-functioning autism? Have you ever been tempted to write about people on the spectrum (also lower - functioning ones)?

@TillyMumsnetBookClub

Nick Hornby?s sunny new novel FUNNY GIRL is set in the 1960s, in a burgeoning era of television comedy where old rules are beginning to crumble and a new energy is transforming the scene. A young beauty queen from Blackpool arrives fresh in the big city, changes her name to Sophie Straw and lands a part in a new sitcom, written by comedy aficionados Tony and Bill. Her natural talent captivates an enormous audience and catapaults them all to national stardom. Hornby has always been a master at capturing the zeitgeist, with a knack for pulling out the right detail or the perfect reference. In this novel, he beautifully captures all the exuberance, social upheaval and excitement of the period, suffused with a love for this golden age of light entertainment.

You can find out more on our book of the month page, or take a look at Nick?s own website for the latest updates and info on all his (stunningly redesigned) previous books.

Penguin have very generously offered 50 copies of FUNNY GIRL to give to Mumsnetters. To claim yours, please go to the book of the month page and fill in your details. We?ll post here when the copies have gone. If you?re not lucky enough to bag one of those, you can always get a copy here

We are thrilled and honoured that Nick Hornby will be chatting to us live on Wednesday 1st July, 9-10pm. So whether you have a question about FUNNY GIRL, about any of Nick?s bestselling novels or would like to hear more about Nick?s writing life, please come along and say hello. Look forward to seeing you on Wednesday 1st..

Test!

Hello, Nick! Have just thought of another question. I'm going to be at a school prize giving thing tomorrow night so not sure I'll be home in time for the answers, but we'll see. In the meantime, I have another question. A lot of your books have been made into films, but Juliet, Naked hasn't. I was wondering why that was - when I read it, I remember thinking what a great film it would make. Of course, someone would have to write the songs, but that would be part of the joy, wouldn't it? Anyway, just wondering whether anyone had shown an interest in filming it - I realise there's many a slip twixt cup and lip when it comes to turning books into films.

(As an aside, I loved An Education and am very pleased to see that you're turning Love, Nina into a tv series.)

I had a panic when I saw this - I thought I'd got the date wrong!

I've been thinking a lot about the book since I finished it. I thought you wrote from a woman's perspective very well, and I was really pleased the returning abandoning mother wasn't done in a stereotypical overblown way. It made it so much more real.

I thought it was interesting that the TV character was named Barbara when that was Sophie's real name. I found it a strange decision at first, but then I liked it. It felt like Sophie was living out a fictionalised version of the life she might have had if she hadn't become an actress.

I realise that I haven't actually asked a question!

I was supposed to be saving my free copy to read on holiday but made the mistake of telling myself I'd just read the first couple of pages. Can't put it down now!
Wonderful to read a novel with a female lead, particularly one with inteligence, wit and a well formed BS filter. I wondered if Nick had any particular female celebrities in mind, whilst writinf this book.
I also wondered which females had played particularly formative roles (positive or negative?) in Nick's own life.

Hi Nick, just wanted to say thank you for the contribution you made to my English A-level 20 years ago. I was required to produce a piece of creative writing and was struggling for inspiration when I came across an excerpt from 'High Fidelty' in a magazine. The excerpt was the list of top 5 break ups so for each of these I wrote the other side of the story. My teacher told me that the examiners were really excited to see something that hadn't been done before.

Anyway, thank you for helping me get a B and good luck for the new book I will add it to my to be read list.

Thank you for my copy MN- I am a dedicated and delighted Nick Hornby fan and have loved everything I have read, especially when written from a male viewpoint - what a privilege, and refutation of the belief that men are emotional voids. I am enjoying this book too although the flow is quite different - what made you choose a female protagonist this time Nick?

I particularly liked the use of photos throughout the book. It made it seem like an autobiography. Why did you choose to use photos and how did you go about selecting them?

Thank you so much for my copy of the book.

Really enjoying the book as I enjoyed all NB's books. How different was it to write from a woman's point of view?

Also, my 14 year old daughter would like to know what your inspiration was for 'About a Boy' and, did you find it easy to write from a teenagers perspective? She loves the book and film.

I’ve been a fan of Nick Hornby ever since About a Boy. This book has an unusual setting for the author. It’s normally (I guess not accidentally) in and around Highbury, home of his beloved Arsenal FC, whilst here the time and place take us (briefly) to Blackpool and then to bedsitland Kensington, London. Anyone with the knowledge of London today will know this must be set in the past, the 1960s. No young hopeful actress from Blackpool would have the wherewithal to rent in Kensington today.

Having read, it must be dozens novels set in this time and place I was expecting the grim, griminess of Lynne Reid Banks’ L-Shaped Room (highly recommended by the way) or the narrative of Margaret Drabble’s early novels, where it takes several wrong starts for the hero(ine) to get going in the new place, but (if this isn't too much of a spoiler), here it is clear quite early on that the heroine is set on the right track. The focus of this book is also wider than you'd expect from the initial storyline: about the early days of TV comedy and a writer's struggle to maintain early success. This is a common trope in books about novelists, but this seems to be unusual in having TV as its focus.

What I love about Hornby's work is while using his deceptively readable narrative, he manages to convey some profound ideas about life. In this case, although the heroine of the book maintains centre stage throughout, one gets glimpses of the lives of several of its protagonists. I was thoroughly absorbed throughout, with the added fun of real photos interspersed throughout, making me pause occasionally for thought: is this really a made-up story?

My question for Nick Hornby is this: given that this era is a bit before your time, how much did you rely on research to ensure the descriptions of the setting rang true?

Hi Nick

We're in the process of reading Funny Girl and loving it. A question to you based on what we've read so far: Barbara/Sophie is a very insightful character. Has this character been based on anyone in particular? Have there been women that have influenced you when you were writing Barbara/Sophie?"

Also, who had the inspiration for the pictures throughout the novel? Did you decide it needed images, your publisher or was it a team decision? And who picked these images?

And on a footballing note, what turned you on to supporting Arsenal (are we right in thinking they're not your local club or certainly weren't when you started being a fan?) - was it during the halcyon days of Pat Jennings???

Thank you.

Evening everyone

Firstly, thank you to all those who have posted their reviews and questions so far.

I’m thrilled and honoured to welcome author, screenwriter, essayist and all-round literary hero Nick Hornby to Bookclub this evening. From the autobiographical Fever Pitch to the essays in 31 Songs, the Young Adult novel Slam to the Whitbread-shortlisted A Long Way Down, Hornby’s writing is always beautifully observed, funny and perceptive. Funny Girl is particularly uplifting and an ideal companion to these sunny days. I am delighted that we have the opportunity to talk about them all with Nick over the next hour.

Nick, thank you very, very much indeed for giving us your time tonight. We've already got a fair few questions to get through so I'll just add the standard Mumsnet ones that we like to ask all our authors...

What childhood book most inspired you?

What would be the first piece of advice you would give to anyone attempting to write fiction?

What is the best book you’ve given someone recently?

And the best you’ve received?

Over to you...

Many thanks to Mumsnet / Penguin Random House Books for a copy of 'Funny Girl' by Nick Hornby. I immediately thought of the 1968 Barbra Streisand film of the same name. In drawing comparisons, they are both tributes to an age of light entertainment many remember fondly. But Nick Hornby's book find its own voice, immersed with his own unique brand of comic writing. The story is well executed, and the author does well in recreating the authentic vernacular and world of 60's showbiz/comedy entertainment.

I'd like to ask Nick a few of general questions to begin with, if I may ......

QUESTION ONE:- Do you have a personal favourite out of the books you've had published?
QUESTION TWO:- Many of your novels have been adapted into film. You even wrote the screenplay to 'An Education'. As the writer, are you ever on the film set during production and/or involved in the development of the film itself, or does your involvement cease once you've submitted your prose?
QUESTION THREE:- I read somewhere that Jonny Depp has purchased the rights to one of your other books, 'A Long Way Down', for a possible film. Is this correct, and, if so, are there any updates relating to that? Additionally, is there any other of your books being optioned for film or television?

This is the first time DH has been interested in a book I've had from MN.

When you first thought about this book was it your intention to make it appeal to women? I have enjoyed your other books but always felt that they were aimed at men.

It has gone a bit quiet.

Hi Nick. As a few others have said, this was so readable and I cared about what happened, not just to Sophie but also to poor Tony in particular. They all had quite downbeat endings, really - were you tempted to make them happier by the end?

@TillyMumsnetBookClub

Evening everyone

Firstly, thank you to all those who have posted their reviews and questions so far.

I?m thrilled and honoured to welcome author, screenwriter, essayist and all-round literary hero Nick Hornby to Bookclub this evening. From the autobiographical Fever Pitch to the essays in 31 Songs, the Young Adult novel Slam to the Whitbread-shortlisted A Long Way Down, Hornby?s writing is always beautifully observed, funny and perceptive. Funny Girl is particularly uplifting and an ideal companion to these sunny days. I am delighted that we have the opportunity to talk about them all with Nick over the next hour.

Nick, thank you very, very much indeed for giving us your time tonight. We've already got a fair few questions to get through so I'll just add the standard Mumsnet ones that we like to ask all our authors...

Hello. I'm here. Thank you for having me, Mumsnet, and thank you, readers.

@TillyMumsnetBookClub

What childhood book most inspired you?

I don’t know if I was inspired in any way by it, but the two books I loved most when I was a kid were both by Erich Kastner – Emil and The Detectives and Lottie and Lisa (which become The Parent Trap in its two filmed versions.) They were the books I read more than once. It only occurred to me relatively recently to Google Kastner – he was a pretty interesting man, an “author, poet, satirist, and screenwriter,” according to Wikipedia. As someone who works in more than one medium, perhaps he inspired me in ways I couldn’t have known.

@TillyMumsnetBookClub

What would be the first piece of advice you would give to anyone attempting to write fiction?

Know your characters. Know everything about them, even things that may never come up in whatever it is you’re working on – their education, their social circles, their sex lives, their tastes in movies and TV. And I think you need to know what’s going to happen in the first fifty pages before you sit down. You don’t have to have the whole thing plotted out – some writers do, some writers don’t. I don’t. But if your novel runs aground in the first ten pages, then it might be a while before you return to it.

@TillyMumsnetBookClub

What is the best book you?ve given someone recently?

I don’t give books very often. I think it’s actually a very demanding thing to do, if you don’t know for sure that the person receiving the gift actually wants it. It’s why cookery books work as gifts: you may flick through it, use it a couple of times, put it in the pile…but actually, you needn’t feel guilty about it. Having said all that, Cheryl Strayed’s ‘Tiny Beautiful Things’ is a wonderful gift, especially if it’s for a friend in some kind of emotional difficulty. It’s a collection of her advice columns from the literary magazine The Rumpus, and it’s brilliant, fearless and moving. I got to know Cheryl when I was adapting her book Wild for the film starring Reese Witherspoon, and she’s every bit as wise and singular as Tiny Beautiful Things suggests. And I’ve given a couple of younger people a copy of Dave Eggers’ The Circle, which seems to me a very important book about what our online lives are doing to us.

@TillyMumsnetBookClub

And the best you?ve received?

It’s terrible, but I think people are too scared to give me books, perhaps because of the attitude described above. I buy books all the time, and I get sent quite a few too, so people tend to give me other things as gifts.

Very quiet, AnneEyhtMeyer !!!

Oops, message sent 4 seconds too late, AnneEyhtMeyer !!!

@hackmum

I am a big Nick Hornby fan and have read all his books. I generally buy them the day they come out (Funny Girl being no exception).

What I loved about Funny Girl was that it felt like a "proper" novel, which is a hard thing to describe but it gave me the feeling I used to have when reading a novel as a child, which is that I felt completely involved in the world of the novel, and really believed in the characters. I rarely experience that suspension of disbelief while reading as an adult. I felt like a completely plausible alternative version of the 60s - at the end I genuinely wanted to believe that it had all really happened.

One of the many things I liked about it, as someone who was a child at the tail end of the 60s, was that it didn't just use the obvious reference points like The Beatles. Instead it used things like The Gambols cartoon strip - anyone else remember that? It just really took me back.

It reminded me a little bit of comic books by Michael Frayn and David Lodge and I'd like to ask Nick if that was an influence he felt while writing it. I may well think of other questions, though.

No, not really. I like both of those writers, and of course I’m happy to be included in their company. I think the truth of it is that there aren’t that many comic novels which attempt the same kind of things, so if I have come anywhere close, then those comparisons are inevitable.

I’m glad you liked the frame of reference. Somebody, a fashion photographer, once said that the Swinging Sixties consisted of two hundred people, and he knew all of them. I wanted to write about some of the others.