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Dickens and Prince
Dickens and Prince: A Particular Kind of Genius | Nick Hornby
12 posts | 12 read | 1 reading | 6 to read
From the bestselling author of Just Like You, High Fidelity, and Fever Pitch, a short, warm, and entertaining book about art, creativity, and the unlikely similarities between Victorian novelist Charles Dickens and modern American rock star Prince Every so often, a pairing comes along that seems completely unlikelyuntil its not. Peanut butter and jelly, Dennis Rodman and Kim Jong Un, ducks and puppies, and now: Dickens and Prince. Equipped with a fans admiration and his trademark humor and wit, Nick Hornby invites us into his latest obsession: the cosmic link between two unlikely artists, geniuses in their own rights, spanning race, class, and centurieseach of whom electrified their different disciplines and whose legacy resounded far beyond their own time. When Princes 1987 record Sign o the Times was rereleased in 2020, the iconic album now came with dozens of songs that werent on the original Prince was endlessly prolific, recording 102 songs in 1986 alone. In awe, Hornby began to wonder, Who else ever produced this much? Who else ever worked that way? He soon found his answer in Victorian novelist and social critic Charles Dickens, who died more than a hundred years before Prince began making music. Examining the two artists personal tragedies, social statuses, boundless productivity, and other parallels, both humorous and haunting, Hornby shows how these two unlikely men from different centuries lit up the world. In the process, he creates a lively, stimulating rumination on the creativity, flamboyance, discipline, and soul it takes to produce great art.
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REPollock
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Pickpick

What a great little book. I‘m a fan of both these artists and this exploration of what their lives and careers had in common is fascinating and illuminating. Recommend if you are also a fan of both.

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rebbyj
Pickpick

Very good. Quick. But a great conversation

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amma-keep-reading
Pickpick

Outside out of my usual read but I was curious to see a different perspective on two very different artists.

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Bookboss
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Pickpick

I love Prince, and I like Dickens, so I picked this up in the store to read the first few pages. Hornby began by recalling a story that circulated when he was growing up that listed all the uncanny similarities between Abraham Lincoln and JFK. I yelped in the bookstore because I had been slightly obsessed with that story when I was a kid. Prince and Dickens did not share a long list of similarities, but both were gifted and prolific. Enchanting!

42 likes2 stack adds
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Honeybeebooks
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Pickpick

As Prince burst upon the music scene, Nick Hornby was smitten. Prince was a prolific creative genius & forged his own path in the industry. As a super fan of Prince, Hornby was struck by the similarities between him & another favorite creative, Dickens. Dickens wrote many of his best works under a stringent serial format that yielded thousands of words & hundreds of pages with little time for editing. Both had a particular genius. Nerdy fun 4+⭐️s.

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OriginalCyn620
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Pickpick

A fun look into the similarities between the two…their lives, their creative genius, their work ethic, their faults, their early deaths. I learned new things about both!

#bookspinbingo
#jumpstart2023
#pop23 - book I bought at an independent bookstore

TheAromaofBooks Woohoo!! 2y
47 likes1 comment
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jdiehr
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Pickpick

This was a fun, short listen comparing the lives and genius of Charles Dickens and Prince.

Hornby touches on their similar work ethic, their art, their women, and their early deaths.

It was entertaining.

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Litsi
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Panpan

These two were hyperactive, prolific, highly sexual, artists who went on to become their own genre. The connection stops there. The cover art shows that this connection is not as close as Hornby would like us to believe. The guitar & hat images do not reflect back on each other, blend or look like they belong in the same space. https://www.facebook.com/1082882538/posts/pfbid0RrCeJsSphwTV6QupTwjNK8AqjreknuJi...

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KathyWheeler
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Pickpick

This was an interesting little book comparing two artists I never would have thought about in the same sentence. Hornby looks at their childhoods, their career outputs, and their early deaths as well as at the genius and drivenness they both possessed. The most interesting part to me was how they both believed that they were being ripped off (from Hornby‘s description, they were) and took steps to stop it.

bnp Sounds fascinating! 2y
KathyWheeler @bnp I thought so. 2y
31 likes1 stack add2 comments
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KathyWheeler
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This evening‘s reading. What an interesting pairing!

22 likes1 stack add
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Jas16
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Pickpick

A book only Nick Hornby would ever write and a book that only he could convince me to try. I consider myself a fan of both Dickens and Prince although hardly an expert on either. While this short audiobook did not bowl me over with never before recognized connections between the two I did learn a few things and was entertained as always by Hornby‘s musings. A light pick.

DivineDiana I do love this concept! 2y
52 likes1 comment
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jenniferw88
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catiewithac Prolific popular creatives? 2y
51 likes1 stack add1 comment