New Releases by Nicholson Baker

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by Literary Hub From the acclaimed and bestselling writer Nicholson Baker, a deeply personal account of his journey learning how to paint for the first time, and a meditation on the power of art in times of crisis Nicholson Baker wanted to learn how to paint. In 2019, after years of researching and writing about secret and often horrible government programs for his book Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act, he was wiped out. Having been steeped for so long in the history of war, violence, and conspiracy, the world had lost some of its brightness. Photography had scratched a creative itch for years, but now, Baker was desperate to squeeze more out of what he saw – he wanted to live, slowly, through the snatches of life he was recording in photos. Maybe, he thought, he could learn to paint? The idea consumed him, but he was nagged by an even more debilitating doubt: What if he failed? Finding a Likeness is Baker’s record of the years he worked to improve his artistic skills, beginning with his first, humble attempts to set paintbrush to paper. Driven by a natural curiosity and a strong desire to paint faces, clouds, and landscapes that actually resemble faces, clouds, and landscapes, he attends classes from local artists, watches YouTube tutorials, and seeks out master painters from the past and present in the hopes of uncovering their secrets. In his inimitable voice, Baker recounts the highs and lows of the creative process, reflects on memories of growing up as the son of two painters, and learns what it means to really see. Filled with Baker’s own art, as well as the work of artists from around the world, Finding a Likeness is a tender and deeply felt testimony to taking a step back and going back to basics. Baker improves dramatically in his craft, but as he considers what it means to try, fail, and try again, he discovers far more than what it takes to paint a cloud – rather, he shows us how to bear witness to the world, to the good and the bad, and to do it all justice with paper and ink.

“Staggeringly good.” —Counterpunch A major new work, a hybrid of history, journalism, and memoir, about the modern Freedom of Information Act—FOIA—and the horrifying, decades-old government misdeeds that it is unable to demystify, from one of America's most celebrated writers Eight years ago, while investigating the possibility that the United States had used biological weapons in the Korean War, Nicholson Baker requested a series of Air Force documents from the early 1950s under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. Years went by, and he got no response. Rather than wait forever, Baker set out to keep a personal journal of what it feels like to try to write about major historical events in a world of pervasive redactions, witheld records, and glacially slow governmental responses. The result is one of the most original and daring works of nonfiction in recent memory, a singular and mesmerizing narrative that tunnels into the history of some of the darkest and most shameful plans and projects of the CIA, the Air Force, and the presidencies of Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. In his lucid and unassuming style, Baker assembles what he learns, piece by piece, about Project Baseless, a crash Pentagon program begun in the early fifties that aimed to achieve "an Air Force-wide combat capability in biological and chemical warfare at the earliest possible date." Along the way, he unearths stories of balloons carrying crop disease, leaflet bombs filled with feathers, suicidal scientists, leaky centrifuges, paranoid political-warfare tacticians, insane experiments on animals and humans, weaponized ticks, ferocious propaganda battles with China, and cover and deception plans meant to trick the Kremlin into ramping up its germ-warfare program. At the same time, Baker tells the stories of the heroic journalists and lawyers who have devoted their energies to wresting documentary evidence from government repositories, and he shares anecdotes from his daily life in Maine feeding his dogs and watching the morning light gather on the horizon. The result is an astonishing and utterly disarming story about waiting, bureaucracy, the horrors of war, and, above all, the cruel secrets that the United States government seems determined to keep forever from its citizens.

Un libro inolvidable que tendrá un profundo efecto sobre nuestra visión de los acontecimientos históricos que culminaron en la Segunda Guerra Mundial y que contiene un sentido lamento por la irreparable pérdida que la humanidad se ha causado a sí misma. No es fácil aplicar una luz distinta a acontecimientos muy conocidos, pero eso es lo que logra Nicholson Baker en esta extraordinaria historia de los orígenes de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. A partir de fragmentos extraídos de periódicos y revistas de la época, discursosradiofónicos, panfletos, diarios y libros de memorias, entre otras fuentes, ordenados cronológicamente, Baker crea un mosaico de momentos decisivos, de barbarie, sufrimiento y compasión, de iluminadores destellos sobre escenas cotidianas e históricas. Una obra coral que, setenta años después, nos deja oír las voces de los líderes políticos y sus opositores, escritores, periodistas, militares y pacifistas,testimonios que ilustran de manera conmovedora el imparable y horrible avance hacia la guerra global y el holocausto. Elogiado por la crítica y los lectores por su capacidad de observación y su límpida prosa, Baker ha creado una narración que se desarrolla elegante, trágica y convincentemente. Reseñas: «Este libro absolutamente extraordinario -imposible de abandonar, imposible de olvidar- podría convertirse en el argumento más convincente en favor de la paz jamás construido. Este inventario meticulosamente seleccionado por Nicholson Baker muestra con asombroso y fascinante detalle el imparable descenso de la humanidad hacia la locura de la guerra.» Simon Winchester «Lentamente, a medida que lees, como consecuencia de la variedad en el tono y de la naturaleza trágica o terrible de la cita, así como de lo certero de su elección, Humo humano se vuelve apasionante y fascinante. Sin embargo, las cuestiones que Baker quiere plantear y el descarnado estilo que emplea para hacerlo, hacen de su libro una contribución seria y convencida al debate sobre el pacifismo. Ha creadoun apasionante y elocuente ataque a la idea de que la elección deliberada de objetivos civiles pueda estar nunca justificada.» Colm Tóibín, The New York Times «Baker se vuelve especialmente interesante y provocativo al intentar demostrar quelos terribles horrores del nazismo reafirman la postura pacifista.» Piers Brendon, The Guardian «Un libro que me ha encantado. Fascinante, sobrecogedor, instructivo, apasionante.» A.C. Grayling, The Times «Un fascinante y audaz experimentohistórico literario, hay que aplaudir la originalidad y sutileza de su enfoque. Humo humano merece una entusiasta acogida.» Geoff Dyer, The Financial Times «Un texto coral en el que son los protagonistas quienes toman la palabra. [...]El resultado es perturbador, como si, de pronto, hubieransido convocados a escena todos los silencios, todos los equívocos imprescindibles para que la historia de la II Guerra Mundial se pueda seguir contando como hasta ahora.» José María Ridao, El País

The epic sequel to RJ Barker's fantasy debut Age of Assassins, set in a world ravaged by magic, featuring a cast of assassins, knights, and ambitious noblemen. In a desperate bid to escape the bounty on his head, assassin Girton Club-Foot has returned to Maniyadoc, but the kingdom he knew no longer exists. Three kings battle for supremacy in a land ravaged by war-and one of them is his old friend Rufra. With threats inside and outside the war encampment, Girton races to find the traitor behind an assassination plot. But his magic can no longer be contained and Girton may not be able to save even himself. It's assassin versus assassin for the life of a king. The Wounded KingdomAge of AssassinsBlood of Assassins.

**A New York Times Bestseller** “May be the most revealing depiction of the American contemporary classroom that we have to date." —Garret Keizer, The New York Times Book Review Bestselling author Nicholson Baker, in pursuit of the realities of American public education, signed up as a substitute teacher in a Maine public school district. In 2014, after a brief orientation course and a few fingerprinting sessions, Nicholson Baker became an on-call substitute teacher in a Maine public school district. He awoke to the dispatcher’s five-forty a.m. phone call and headed to one of several nearby schools; when he got there, he did his best to follow lesson plans and help his students get something done. What emerges from Baker’s experience is a complex, often touching deconstruction of public schooling in America: children swamped with overdue assignments, over­whelmed by the marvels and distractions of social media and educational technology, and staff who weary themselves trying to teach in step with an often outmoded or overly ambitious standard curriculum. In Baker’s hands, the inner life of the classroom is examined anew—mundane work­sheets, recess time-outs, surprise nosebleeds, rebellions, griefs, jealousies, minor triumphs, kindergarten show-and-tell, daily lessons on everything from geology to metal tech to the Holocaust—as he and his pupils struggle to find ways to get through the day. Baker is one of the most inventive and remarkable writers of our time, and Substitute, filled with humor, honesty, and empathy, may be his most impressive work of nonfiction yet.

TOGETHER FOR THE FIRST TIME, BOTH OF NICHOLSON BAKER’S BRILLIANT NOVELS FEATURING BELOVED HERO AND POET PAUL CHOWDER A New York Times notable book and a national bestseller, Nicholson Baker’s The Anthologist introduces his quirkiest and most unforgettable protagonist yet, the “erudite, unpretentious, and often hilarious” (The New Yorker) Paul Chowder. Chowder really needs to write an introduction to his new anthology of verse, Only Rhyme—it’s the first work his editor has sent him in months—but he’s having a hard time getting started. Not only is his career floundering, but his girlfriend, Roz, just moved out. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Chowder can’t keep his mind from drifting to the sufferings of the great poets, from Tennyson and Yeats to Roethke, Merwin, to every poet who’s been published in The New Yorker. As he ponders the strange power and musicality of language, and adjusts to his newly single life, Chowder’s introduction slowly but surely begins to take shape. A wholly entertaining and beguiling love story, and the first novel in the chronicles of Paul Chowder—which is followed by Traveling Sprinkler in this same volume—The Anthologist is “a loving and superbly witty homage to poetryand to life” (The Boston Globe).

Paul Chowder is a poet, but he''s fallen out of love with writing poems. He hasn''t fallen out of love with his ex-girlfriend Roz, though. In fact he misses her desperately. As he struggles to come to terms with Roz''s new relationship with a doctor, Paul turns to his acoustic guitar for comfort and inspiration, and fills his days writing protest songs, going to Quaker meetings, struggling through Planet Fitness workouts, wondering if he could become a techno DJ, and experimenting with becoming a cigar smoker.

Paul Chowder, the poet protagonist of Nicholson Baker’s widely acclaimed novel The Anthologist, is turning fifty-five and missing his ex-girlfriend, Roz, rather desperately. As he approaches the dreaded birthday, Paul is uninspired by his usual artistic outlet (although he’s pleased that his poetry anthology, Only Rhyme, is selling “steadily”). Putting aside poetry in favor of music, and drawing on his classical bassoon training, Paul turns instead to his new acoustic guitar with one goal in mind: to learn songwriting. As he struggles to come to terms with the horror of America’s drone wars and Roz’s recent relationship with a local NPR radio host, Paul fills his days with Quaker meetings, Planet Fitness workouts, and some experiments with tobacco. Written in Baker’s beautifully unconventional prose, and scored with musical influences from Debussy to Tracy Chapman to Paul himself, Traveling Sprinkler is an enchanting, hilarious—and very necessary—novel by one of the most beloved and influential writers today.

The Way the World Works, Nicholson Baker's ranges over the map of life to examine what ails us, what eases our pain, and what gives us joy. Baker-recently hailed as "one of the most consistently enticing writers of our time" by The New York Times-moves from political controversy to the intimacy of his own life, from forgotten heroes of pacifism to airplane wings, telephones, paper mills, David Remnick, Joseph Pulitzer, the OED, and the manufacture of the Venetian gondola. In one essay, Baker surveys our fascination with video games while attempting to beat his teenage son at Modern Warfare 2; in a celebrated essay on Wikipedia, he describes his efforts to stem the tide of encyclopedic deletionism. Through all these pieces Baker shines the light of an inexpugnable curiosity; The Way the World Works is a keen-minded, generous-spirited compendium by a modern American master.

« Il y a quelque chose d''admirable dans l''intelligence comique et raffinée que Baker déploie, le plaisir qu''il prend à ne négliger aucun détail. [...] En réponse au défi qu''il s''est lui-même lancé - écrire un texte vraiment pornographique mais aussi hilarant, globalement féministe dans ses intentions, enjoué et étrangement innocent - sa performance est une prouesse technique encore plus folle qu''elle n''en a l''air. » Christopher Tayler, London Review of Books « Sans doute le livre de Baker le plus inventif. » New York Observer « Nicholson Baker, grand maître du détail, parvient à élever le trivial au rang du grand art. C''est dans ses romans érotiques qu''apparaît avec le plus d''évidence son talent pour l''expliciter. Avec La belle échappée, il atteint des nouveaux sommets de perversité et d''humour. » Vanity Fair)

The Size of Thoughts, a collection of essays that have appeared in the New Yorker and other publications, includes one never-before-published piece on the world of electronics. The essays celebrate the joy--and exquisite details--of everything from library card catalogs and reading aloud to the significance of wine stains on a tablecloth. Baker turns any subject, from feeding a child to phone sex, into literature with a style that is sparklingly original, frequently beautiful, and always thought-provoking. The Size of Thoughts, through its varied forays into the realms of the overlooked, the underfunded, and the wrongfully scrapped, is a funny book by one of the most distinctive stylists and thinkers of out time.

Our supreme fabulist of the ordinary now turns his attention on a 9-year-old American girl and produces a novel as enchantingly idiosyncratic as any he has written. Nory Winslow wants to be a dentist or a designer of pop-up books. She likes telling stories and inventing dolls. She has nightmares about teeth, which may explain her career choice. She is going to school in England, where she is mocked for her accent and her friendship with an unpopular girl, and she has made it through the year without crying. Nicholson Baker follows Nory as she interacts with her parents and peers, thinks about God and death-watch beetles, and dreams of cows with pointed teeth. In this precocious child he gives us a heroine as canny and as whimsical as Lewis Carroll's Alice and evokes childhood in all its luminous weirdness.

Shandee finds a friendly arm at a granite quarry. Ned drops down a hole in a golf course. Luna meets a man made of light bulbs at a tanning parlor. So begins Nicholson Baker’s fuse-blowing, sex-positive escapade, House of Holes. Baker, the bestselling author of The Mezzanine, Vox, and The Fermata, who “writes like no one else in America” (Newsweek), returns to erotic territory with a gleefully over-the-top novel set in a pleasure resort, where normal rules don’t apply. Visitors, pulled in via their drinking straws or the dryers in laundromats, can undergo crotchal transfers . . . make love to trees . . . visit the Groanrooms and the twelve-screen Porndecahedron . . . or pussy-surf the White Lake. It’s very expensive, of course, but there are work-study programs. In charge of day-to-day operations is Lila, a former hospital administrator whose breast milk has unusual regenerative properties. Brimful of good-nature, wit, and surreal sexual vocabulary, House of Holes is a modern-day Hieronymous Boschian bacchanal that is sure to surprise, amuse, and arouse.

From a New York Times–bestselling and National Book Critics Award–winning author comes a “small masterpiece” of fatherhood, childhood, and bottle-feeding (Publishers Weekly). In a novel Entertainment Weekly called “intensely funny and moving,” Nicholson Baker takes the reader on an intellectual odyssey over the course of the twenty minutes it takes a new father to give his baby daughter her bottle. Through inspired moments of mental flight, Mike’s thoughts on his newfound parenthood lead him back to his own childhood and to reflections on the objects of his youth. From glass peanut butter jars to French horns, from typography to courtship, Baker reveals “some of the tenderest, most delicate interaction between husband and wife, adult and infant, in modern fiction” (Los Angeles Times). “Sparkling . . . frequently hilarious . . . This is a big novel unfolding . . . so subtly that one is scarcely aware of its magnitude until the last page.” —The Boston Globe “A delightful book . . . Every page provokes the shock, or at least the smile, of recognition.” —The Washington Post “A major cosmic drama . . . It is a delightful book . . . a real charmer, a breath of fresh air, a show-stopping coloratura aria made of the quirks of memory and the quiddities of daily life.” —The Sacramento Union “[A] small masterpiece by an extraordinarily gifted . . . writer.” —Publishers Weekly

A National Book Critics Circle Award–winner elevates the ordinary events that occur to a man on his lunch hour into “a constant delight” of a novel (The Boston Globe). In this startling, witty, and inexhaustibly inventive novel, New York Times–bestselling author Nicholson Baker uses a one-story escalator ride as the occasion for a dazzling reappraisal of everyday objects and rituals. From the humble milk carton to the act of tying one’s shoes, The Mezzanine at once defamiliarizes the familiar world and endows it with loopy and euphoric poetry. Baker’s accounts of the ordinary become extraordinary through his sharp storytelling and his unconventional, conversational style. At first glance, The Mezzanine appears to be a book about nothing. In reality, it is a brilliant celebration of things, simultaneously demonstrating the value of reflection and the importance of everyday human experiences. “A very funny book . . . Its 135 pages probably contain more insight into life as we live it today than anything currently on the best-seller list.” —The New York Times “Captures the spirit of American corporate life and invests it with a passion and sympathy that is entirely unexpected.” —The Seattle Times “Among the year’s best.” —The Boston Globe “Baker writes with appealing charm . . . [He] clowns and shows off . . . rambles and pounces hard; he says acute things, extravagant things, terribly funny things.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review “Wonderfully readable, in fact gripping, with surprising bursts of recognition, humor and wonder.” —The Washington Post Book World

"The Anthologist" captures all the warmth, wit, and extraordinary prose stylethat have made Baker--a National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author--anAmerican master.

Bestselling author Nicholson Baker, recognized as one of the most dexterous and talented writers in America today, has created a compelling work of nonfiction bound to provoke discussion and controversy -- a wide-ranging, astonishingly fresh perspective on the political and social landscape that gave rise to World War II. Human Smoke delivers a closely textured, deeply moving indictment of the treasured myths that have romanticized much of the 1930s and '40s. Incorporating meticulous research and well-documented sources -- including newspaper and magazine articles, radio speeches, memoirs, and diaries -- the book juxtaposes hundreds of interrelated moments of decision, brutality, suffering, and mercy. Vivid glimpses of political leaders and their dissenters illuminate and examine the gradual, horrifying advance toward overt global war and Holocaust. Praised by critics and readers alike for his exquisitely observant eye and deft, inimitable prose, Baker has assembled a narrative within Human Smoke that unfolds gracefully, tragically, and persuasively. This is an unforgettable book that makes a profound impact on our perceptions of historical events and mourns the unthinkable loss humanity has borne at its own hand.

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, Nicholson Baker has established himself as one of our most brilliant observers of everyday experience. With his keen perception, flawless prose, and endless wit, he has composed both fiction and nonfiction that has become an essential part of our literature. Vintage Baker contains generous selections from the novels Vox, The Fermata, The Mezzanine, and A Box of Matches; essays from The Size of Thoughts; and portions of the NBCC award winner Doublefold. Vintage Readers are a perfect introduction to some of the great modern writers, presented in attractive, affordable paperback editions.