'Writing what I wanted to read'

“The great thing about novels is that you can be as un-shy as you want to be.  I'm very polite in person. I don't want to talk about startling or upsetting things with people.” – Nicholson Baker

 

Born in New York City in January of 1957, Baker has written nearly two dozen books (both novels and nonfiction) and dozens of essays.   His writings range from poetry and literature to studies about library systems and time manipulation and he has won numerous writing honors including a National Book Critics Circle Award, the International Hermann Hesse Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

 

Baker studied at both the Eastman School in Rochester, NY and Haverford College in Philadelphia where he began his writing career.  A fervent advocate for libraries’ maintaining “physical copies” of books, manuscripts and old newspapers, he established the American Newspaper Repository to help insure that they would not be destroyed.  For his ongoing efforts, he won the prestigious James Madison Freedom of Information Award.  

                                         

Among Baker’s best-known works are Double-Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper, and Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II; The End of Civilization.  His newest book is 2024’s Finding a Likeness:  How I Got Somewhat Better at Art.

 

He said he likes to write what he enjoys reading.   “(Each time) . . .What I wrote,” he said, “was exactly what I wanted to read.”