nicholson baker Archive
Nicholson Baker’s Deep Dives
Nicholson Baker’s longform essay “Lumber” is about the joy of one man doing the work of discovery and learning, and the fact that it comes from a time before the lazy chaos of the internet might be the most enjoyable thing about it.
Novels Where the Digressions Are Half the Point
Of all the reasons to read a novel, plot tends to be the most compelling. Yet atmosphere, ideas, humor, the construction of a well-turned-out sentence--all these are also incentives to keep turning pages.
A Year Spent Reading 100 Books
I write New Year’s resolutions every year, though I really ought to know better. Run every day, floss regularly, stop eating donuts: it’s the stuff of fantasy. In 2014 I spared myself the usual set-ups for failure in favor of a more exotic set-up for failure: I resolved to