I'm about halfway through Nick Hornby's new book How To Be Good. So far it's the best one of his that I have read (High Fidelity and About A Boy being the others, as well one of his short stories in the anthology Speaking With The Angel). He has a disarmingly simple and clear way of expressing himself; his sentences are clever and insightful without being self-conscious (Dave Eggers) or pregnant with weight (Jonathan Franzen). I don't know anything about marriage, but what he writes about being in a slowly deteriorating marriage just feels very geniuine. The flipping between anger and love and back again in seconds, the deep and hidden bitterness only possible with someone you love deeply, and the desperate desire to make it work are all there. Hornby's prose is expressive and evocative, but calls so little attention to itself that you have to pay close attention to realize what he's doing. It's fantastic.