Few writers have managed to pin the millennial male ego under glass the way Nick Hornby has. In his comic novels High Fidelity, About a Boy, and the new Juliet, Naked, among others, Hornby picks apart our vanity and insecurity in ways that are as scary as they are entertaining. He’s also written loads of great nonfiction about his love of soccer, literature, and pop music.

Like High Fidelity, probably his best-known book, Juliet, Naked concerns a man obsessed with the latter subject. Duncan is a low-rung, 40-something professor in a British seaside town who runs a website devoted to examining the works of Tucker Crowe, a singer-songwriter who won a cult following before walking away from music and public life 20 years ago. Annie, Duncan’s long-suffering girlfriend, is the third side of the comic triangle at the book’s center.

DCist caught up with Hornby by phone earlier this week to talk about the new novel, its connections to his most famous novel, and his writing habits. Hornby will read from and sign copies of his latest novel at Politics and Prose tonight at 7 p.m.