Sometimes I surprise even myself. Yesterday I posted saying it would be a day or two before I got to writing about Number 15 on the list, really thinking it would be more like four days.

But here I am one fine day later. I would blame the expedited finishing of Nick Hornby’s “How To Be Good” on going to the DMV today, except it was easily the fastest DMV trip in the history of humanity and I only read like four pages there.

This was sort of a recommendation, which have turned out to be some of my favorite books in the Year of Reading or whatever I dubbed this project in January. Actually “High Fidelity” was the recommendation, but since I’ve seen the movie I thought I’d give this one a shot.

“How To Be Good” puts forth a very simple question: What happens when you think you’re the “good” one in a relationship, but out of nowhere the other person becomes far “gooder” than you? How do you deal with it?

It’s also a book written by a man with a female narrator, something I can’t remember encountering. It seemed like she had a perfectly logical inner monologue, which probably means it’s somehow flawed in reality. But I digress.

Katie’s husband David visits a healer and comes back completely changed. He’s nice to everyone, is concerned about the struggling people in the world and has suddenly utterly confused his wife who thinks he’s a jerk. Actually, as a doctor, she thinks there’s something very wrong with him. “David. I don’t want you to panic, but listen carefully and do exactly what I say. You probably have a brain tumor. You have to go to the hospital and have a CAT scan, urgently.”

Of course there’s a far better explanation. He had crippling back pain, and visited a healer named GoodNews. That’s totally what I would do in case of major pain. Maybe my guy would be named Admiral GoodNews for extra authority.

GoodNews does such a great job at not only healing the pain, but changing David’s sour outlook on life, he naturally moves in with the family. Told from Katie’s perspective, this is a totally non-sensical event and she’s less than enthused about a “healer” living under the same roof as her two children.

But the way the story develops, you can feel right along with Katie how more normalized having a guy named GoodNews upstairs feels as things go along. She even agrees to let the eccentric man babysit the kids, though hopes she doesn’t know how she would explain the situation to a few parties who would never understand. “Imaginary conversation with my parents, or social services: ‘Who’s in charge of your children?’ ‘Oh, GoodNews and Monkey.'”

Monkey, of course, is the homeless young man they’ve also invited to live with them as part of a program to get the entire block to “adopt” bums from the street. Hey if a guy named GoodNews is already in your home, what’s the worst that can happen, especially if it’s his idea?

Katie’s problem of dealing with borderline nauseating “goodness” from her husband is exacerbated by her daughter, Molly. The girl likes to stick it to her brother whenever possible and takes on her own campaign of supporting everything David does. At one point Katie decides she pretty much despises her kids, especially Molly. I can’t blame her. That girl is one of the more annoying literary characters I’ve encountered in a while, and she’s not even mentioned that often.

Be good.

Next up: Paul Auster’s “The Book Of Illusions”