'It's all about their brute persistence'

 

“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 on this date in 1957, Baker is a novelist and essayist who has written about everything from poetry, literature and library systems to history, politics and time manipulation.   Among his many writing honors are a National Book Critics Circle Award, and the International Hermann Hesse Prize.  While he has written 11 well-received novels, Baker’s best-known works are the non-fiction titles Double-Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper, and Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II; The End of Civilization.  His most recent book, his 8th non-fiction title, is 2024’s Finding A Likeness: How I Got Somewhat Better at Art.

 

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 and winning the prestigious James Madison Freedom of Information Award for his efforts.  

 

“Printed books usually outlive bookstores and the publishers who brought them out,” he said.  “They sit around, demanding nothing, for decades.  That’s one of their nicest qualities – their brute persistence.”