Nicholson Baker

{{short description|Contemporary American novelist and writer (born 1957)}}

{{Infobox writer

| name = Nicholson Baker

| image = Nicholson baker 8208.JPG

| image_size =

| image_upright = 0.8

| alt = Nicholson Baker

| caption = Baker in 2013

| pseudonym =

| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1957|1|7}}{{cite news |last1=O'Mahony |first1=John |title=Profile: Nicholson Baker |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/jan/11/featuresreviews.guardianreview20 |access-date=December 30, 2019 |work=The Guardian |date=January 11, 2003 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181105212347/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/jan/11/featuresreviews.guardianreview20 |archive-date=November 5, 2018}}

| birth_place = New York City, U.S.

| death_date =

| occupation =

| language = English

| nationality = American

| ethnicity =

| citizenship =

| education = Eastman School of Music

| alma_mater = Haverford College

| period =

| genre = Novels, non-fiction, essays

| notableworks = {{ubl

| The Mezzanine

| The Fermata

| Double Fold

}}

| website = {{Official URL}}

}}

Nicholson Baker (born January 7, 1957) is an American novelist and essayist. His fiction generally de-emphasizes narrative in favor of careful description and characterization. His early novels such as The Mezzanine and Room Temperature were distinguished by their minute inspection of his characters' and narrators' stream of consciousness.{{Citation needed|date=August 2024}} Out of a total of ten novels, three are erotica: Vox, The Fermata and House of Holes.

Baker also writes non-fiction books. U and I: A True Story, about his relationship with John Updike, was published in 1991. He then wrote about the American library system in his 2001 book Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper, for which he received a National Book Critics Circle Award and the Calw Hermann Hesse Prize for the German translation. A pacifist, he wrote Human Smoke (2008) about the buildup to World War II.

Baker has published articles in Harper's Magazine, the London Review of Books and The New Yorker, among other periodicals. Baker created the American Newspaper Repository in 1999. He has also written about and edited Wikipedia.

Life

Nicholson Baker was born in 1957 in New York City.{{Cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/magazine/nicholson-bakers-dirty-mind.html |title = Nicholson Baker's Dirty Mind|newspaper = The New York Times|date = 2011-08-04|last1 = McGrath|first1 = Charles}}

He studied briefly at the Eastman School of Music and received a B.A. in English from Haverford College.

Baker describes himself as an atheist, although he occasionally visits Quaker meetings.{{cite web |last1=O'Connell |first1=Mark |title=It's a Mixed Life: An Interview with Nicholson Baker |url=https://themillions.com/2013/11/its-a-mixed-life-an-interview-with-nicholson-baker.html |website=The Millions |access-date=30 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191230164833/https://themillions.com/2013/11/its-a-mixed-life-an-interview-with-nicholson-baker.html |archive-date=30 December 2019 |date=6 November 2013}} Baker says he has "always had pacifist leanings."McGrath, Charles (2008-03-04) [https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/books/04bake.html A Debunker on the Road to World War II], New York Times

Baker met his wife, Margaret Brentano, in college; they live in Maine and have two grown children.McGrath, Charles (2011-08-04) [https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/magazine/nicholson-bakers-dirty-mind.html Nicholson Baker: The Mad Scientist of Smut], New York Times

Career

Baker established a name for himself with the novels The Mezzanine (1988) and Room Temperature (1990). Both novels have for the most part a very limited time span. The Mezzanine occurs over the course of an escalator journey and Room Temperature happens while a father feeds his baby daughter.{{cite news |last1=Wolitzer |first1=Meg |title=Book review: "House of Holes," by Nicholson Baker |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/book-review-house-of-holes-by-nicholson-baker/2011/07/14/gIQAqRKD3I_story.html |access-date=30 December 2019 |newspaper=Washington Post |date=8 August 2011}}

U and I: A True Story (1991) is a non-fiction study of how a reader engages with an author's work. It is partly about Baker's appreciation for the work of John Updike and partly a self-exploration. Rather than giving a traditional literary analysis, Baker begins the book by stating that he will read no more Updike than he already has up to that point. All of the Updike quotations used are presented as coming from memory alone, and many are inaccurate, with correct versions and Baker's (later) commentary on the inaccuracies.{{cite news |last1=Frumke |first1=Lewis Burke |title=Mr. Updike, I'm Your Biggest Fan |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/01/04/15/specials/baker-u.html |access-date=30 December 2019 |work=New York Times |date=14 April 1991 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191230211756/https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/01/04/15/specials/baker-u.html |archive-date=30 December 2019}}

Critics group together Vox, The Fermata and House of Holes since they are all erotic novels.{{cite news |last1=Thorne |first1=Matt |title=House of Holes, By Nicholson Baker |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/house-of-holes-by-nicholson-baker-2347494.html |access-date=30 December 2019 |work=The Independent |date=2 September 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191230163020/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/house-of-holes-by-nicholson-baker-2347494.html |archive-date=30 December 2019 |language=en}}{{cite news|url=https://www.gq.com/story/nicholson-baker-house-holes-book-review|title=Oh, the Places You'll Come|last=Bissell|first=Tom|year=2011|work=GQ|access-date=26 July 2015}} Vox (1992) consists of an episode of phone sex between two young single people on a pay-per-minute chat line. The book was Baker's first New York Times bestseller and Monica Lewinsky gave a copy to President Bill Clinton when they were having an affair.{{cite news |last1=McGrath |first1=Charles |title=Nicholson Baker's Dirty Mind |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/magazine/nicholson-bakers-dirty-mind.html |access-date=30 December 2019 |work=The New York Times |date=4 August 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191230143420/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/magazine/nicholson-bakers-dirty-mind.html |archive-date=30 December 2019}} In Vox, Baker coined the word femalia. The Fermata (1994) also addresses erotic life and fantasy. The protagonist Arno Strine likes to stop time and take off women's clothes. The work proved controversial with critics.{{cite news |last1=Mars-Jones |first1=Adam |title=Larceny |url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v16/n06/adam-mars-jones/larceny |access-date=30 December 2019 |work=London Review of Books |date=24 March 1994 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191230152951/https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v16/n06/adam-mars-jones/larceny |archive-date=30 December 2019 |language=en}} It was also a bestseller. House of Holes (2011) is about a fantastical place where all sexual perversions and fetishes are permitted. It is a collection of stories, more or less connected to each other. The novellas are erotic in the sense of Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron. The titular House of Holes is a fantasy sex resort in which people can engage in absurd sexual practices, such as groin transference and sex with trees. Akin to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, people enter the House of Holes through such techniques as tumbling through a clothes dryer or through a drinking straw.{{cite journal | url = http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/sep/29/coming-attractions/ | last = Blair | first = Elaine | title = Coming attractions | type = review of House of Holes | journal = New York Review of Books | date = September 29, 2011 | volume = 58 | number = 14 | access-date = September 13, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191230223748/https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2011/09/29/coming-attractions/ |archive-date= 30 December 2019}}

Baker is a fervent critic of what he perceives as libraries' unnecessary destruction of paper-based media. He wrote several vehement articles in The New Yorker critical of the San Francisco Public Library for sending thousands of books to a landfill, eliminating card catalogs, and destroying old books and newspapers in favor of microfilm. In 1997, Baker received the San Francisco–based James Madison Freedom of Information Award in recognition of these efforts. In 1999, Baker established a non-profit corporation, the American Newspaper Repository, to rescue old newspapers from destruction by libraries.[http://home.gwi.net/~dnb/former_newsrep.html American Newspaper Repository] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071225150429/http://home.gwi.net/~dnb/former_newsrep.html |date=2007-12-25 }} In 2001, he published Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper about preservation, newspapers, and the American library system. An excerpt first appeared in the July 24, 2000, issue of The New Yorker, under the title "Deadline: The Author's Desperate Bid to Save America's Past."{{cite news |last1=Baker |first1=Nicholson |title=Deadline |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2000/07/24/deadline-3 |access-date=30 December 2019 |work=New Yorker |date=17 July 2000 |language=en}} The exhaustively researched work (there are 63 pages of endnotes and 18 pages of references in the paperback edition) details Baker's quest to uncover the fate of thousands of books and newspapers that were replaced and often destroyed during the microfilming boom of the 1980s and 1990s.

The 2004 novel Checkpoint is composed of dialogue between two old high school friends, Jay and Ben, who discuss Jay's plans to assassinate President George W. Bush.{{cite web |last1=Wieseltier |first1=Leon |title=The Extremities of Nicholson Baker |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/08/books/the-extremities-of-nicholson-baker.html |website=The New York Times |access-date=30 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191230214403/https://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/08/books/the-extremities-of-nicholson-baker.html |archive-date=30 December 2019 |date=8 August 2004}}

Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization (2008) is a history of World War II that questions the commonly held belief that the Allies wanted to avoid the war at all costs but were forced into action by Hitler's unforgiving actions. It consists largely of official government transcripts and other documents from the time. He suggests that the pacifists were correct in their views.{{cite web |title=Nicholson Baker - The European Graduate School |url=https://egs.edu/faculty/nicholson-baker |website=egs.edu |access-date=30 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191230224910/https://egs.edu/faculty/nicholson-baker |archive-date=30 December 2019}}

In March 2008, Baker reviewed John Broughton's Wikipedia: The Missing Manual in the New York Review of Books. In the review, Baker described Wikipedia's beginnings, its culture, and his own editing activities under the username "Wageless".Baker, Nicholson;[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21131 "The Charms of Wikipedia"], The New York Review of Books; Volume 55, Number 4 March 20, 2008. His article "How I fell in love with Wikipedia" was published in The Guardian newspaper in the UK on April 10, 2008.[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/apr/10/wikipedia.internet How I fell in love with Wikipedia]

The Anthologist (2009) is narrated by Paul Chowder, a poet, who is attempting to write an introduction to a poetry anthology. Distracted by problems in his life, he is unable to begin writing, and instead ruminates on poets and poetry throughout history.{{cite web |last1=Asher |first1=Levi |title=The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker |url=https://www.litkicks.com/Anthologist |website=Literary Kicks |access-date=30 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191230225842/https://www.litkicks.com/Anthologist |archive-date=30 December 2019 |language=en |date=15 September 2009}} Also in 2009, Baker reviewed Ken Auletta's Googled: The End of the World as We Know It in the New York Times.{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/books/review/Baker-t.html | title=Google's Earth | work=The New York Times | date=27 November 2009 | last1=Baker | first1=Nicholson }} Auletta responded by sending a letter to the editor bemoaning what he perceived as the inaccuracy of Baker's review.{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/books/review/Letters-t-GOOGLED_LETTERS.html | title='Googled' | work=The New York Times | date=11 December 2009 }} Here is Baker's rebuttal:

Ken Auletta wrote a thought-provoking book, and I recorded several thoughts provoked. It’s a book review, not a bouillon cube. I don’t “imply” or “suggest” that the author agrees with the people he quotes. There is indeed an absence of warmth in this chronicle of Google as “dreaded disruptor,” but it’s an impartial chilliness, extending in all directions.{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/books/review/Letters-t-GOOGLED_LETTERS.html | title='Googled' | work=The New York Times | date=11 December 2009 }}

In 2014, Baker spent 28 days as a substitute teacher in some Maine public schools as research for his 2016 book Substitute: Going to School With a Thousand Kids.{{cite news|title=Nicholson Baker Goes Back to School as a Substitute Teacher|url=http://www.wnyc.org/story/nicholson-baker-substitute/|access-date=21 September 2016|work=Leonard Lopate Show|publisher=WNYC radio|date=20 September 2016}} Baker tried to find out "what life in the classroom is really like."{{cite news|title=Nicholson Baker goes back to school in 'substitute'|url=http://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/nicholson-baker-goes-back-to-school-in-substitute-20160909|access-date=21 September 2016|publisher=Buffalo News|date=9 September 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160923021124/http://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/nicholson-baker-goes-back-to-school-in-substitute-20160909 |archive-date= 23 September 2016}} He also wrote about the experience for The New York Times Magazine.

Baker wrote a cover story for New York Magazine in January 2021 investigating the COVID-19 lab leak theory and expressing his belief in the theory’s plausibility.{{Cite magazine |last=Wallace-Wells |first=Benjamin |title=The Sudden Rise of the Coronavirus Lab-Leak Theory |url=https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/the-sudden-rise-of-the-coronavirus-lab-leak-theory |access-date=2022-07-05 |magazine=The New Yorker |date=27 May 2021 |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |last=Ling |first=Justin |title=The Lab Leak Theory Doesn't Hold Up |url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/06/15/lab-leak-theory-doesnt-hold-up-covid-china/ |access-date=2022-07-05 |website=Foreign Policy |date=15 June 2021 |language=en-US}}

Works

File:Nicholson.baker.books.jpg

=Fiction=

The Mezzanine (1988, Weidenfeld & Nicolson; {{ISBN|1-55584-258-5}} / 1990, Vintage; {{ISBN|0-679-72576-8}})
Room Temperature (1990, Grove Weidenfeld; {{ISBN|0-8021-1224-2}} / 1990, Vintage; {{ISBN|0-679-73440-6}} / 1990, Granta; {{ISBN|0-14-014212-6}} / 1991, Granta; {{ISBN|0-14-014021-2}})
Vox: A Novel (1992, Random House; {{ISBN|0-394-58995-5}} / 1992, Vintage; {{ISBN|0-679-74211-5}} / 1992, Granta; {{ISBN|0-14-014057-3}})
The Fermata (1994, Vintage; {{ISBN|0-679-75933-6}})
The Everlasting Story of Nory (1998, Random House; {{ISBN|0-679-43933-1}} / 1998, Vintage; {{ISBN|0-679-73440-6}})
A Box of Matches (2003, Random House; {{ISBN|0-375-50287-4}} / 2003, Chatto & Windus; {{ISBN|0-7011-7402-1}})
Vintage Baker (2004, Vintage; {{ISBN|9781400078608}})
Checkpoint (2004, Random House; {{ISBN|1-4000-4400-6}})
The Anthologist (2009, Simon & Schuster; {{ISBN|1-84737-635-5}})
House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011, Simon & Schuster; {{ISBN|1-4391-8951-X}})
Traveling Sprinkler (2013, Blue Rider Press; {{ISBN|978-0399160967}})

=Non-fiction=

U and I: A True Story (1991, Random House; {{ISBN|0-394-58994-7}} / 1991 Penguin/Granta; {{ISBN|0-14-014226-6}} (hard) / 1992, Penguin/Granta; {{ISBN|0-14-014040-9}} (paper) /1995, Vintage; {{ISBN|0-679-73575-5}} / 1998, Granta; {{ISBN|1-86207-097-0}})
The Size of Thoughts: Essays and Other Lumber (1996, Random House, {{ISBN|0-679-43932-3}} / 1996, Vintage; {{ISBN|0-679-77624-9}} (paper) / 1996, Chatto & Windus; {{ISBN|0-7011-6301-1}} (hard) / 1997, Vintage; {{ISBN|0-09-957971-5}} (paper))
Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper (2001, Random House; {{ISBN|0-375-50444-3}} / 2001, Vintage; {{ISBN|0-375-72621-7}} / 2002, Vintage; {{ISBN|0-09-942903-9}})
With Margaret Brentano (his wife). The World on Sunday: Graphic Art in Joseph Pulitzer's Newspaper (1898– 1911) (2005, Bulfinch; {{ISBN|0-8212-6193-2}})
Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization (2008, Simon & Schuster; {{ISBN|978-1-4165-6784-4}})
The Way the World Works: Essays (2012, Simon & Schuster; {{ISBN|978-1-4165-7247-3}}){{cite web | url=http://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/books-and-literature/reviews/nicholson-baker-on-the-way-of-the-world/article_625c608a-e579-11e1-b432-001a4bcf6878.html | title=Nicholson Baker on the way of the world |first= Jane|last= Henderson |date= Aug 18, 2012| work= St. Louis Post-Dispatch}}
Substitute: Going to School with a Thousand Kids (2016, Blue Rider Press; {{ISBN|978-0-399-16098-1}})
Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act (2020, Penguin Press; {{ISBN|978-0735215757}})[https://www.amazon.com/Baseless-Search-Secrets-Freedom-Information/dp/0735215758/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Baseless+nicholson+baker&qid=1602438786&sr=8-1 Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act], amazon.com. Retrieved

2020-10-11.

[https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/635820/finding-a-likeness-by-nicholson-baker/ Finding a Likeness: How I Got Somewhat Better at Art] (2024, Penguin Press {{ISBN|978-1984881397}})

=Selected essays and reporting=

{{Cite journal |date=4 January 2021 |title=The Lab-Leak Hypothesis

|journal=New York Magazine |url=https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html }}

{{Cite news |date=7 September 2016 |title=Fortress of Tedium: What I Learned as a Substitute Teacher

|journal=New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/11/magazine/fortress-of-tedium-what-i-learned-as-a-substitute-teacher.html?_r=1 }}

{{cite magazine |date=September 2013 |title=Wrong Answer: The Case Against Algebra II |magazine=Harper's Magazine |url=http://harpers.org/archive/2013/09/wrong-answer/ }}
{{cite magazine |date=8 July 2013 |title=A Fourth State of Matter |magazine=The New Yorker |volume=89 |issue=20 |pages=64–73 |url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/07/08/a-fourth-state-of-matter }}
{{cite magazine |date=8 October 2012 |title=Four Protest Songs |magazine=The New Yorker |url=http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/2012/10/8/four-protest-songs |access-date=2017-02-15 |archive-date=2017-02-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170214104321/http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/2012/10/8/four-protest-songs |url-status=dead }}
{{cite magazine |title=Can the Kindle Really Improve On the Book? |date=27 July 2009 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/08/03/a-new-page |magazine=The New Yorker |language=en |issn=0028-792X}}
{{cite journal |title=Lost Youth |journal=London Review of Books |date=9 June 1994 |url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v16/n11/nicholson-baker/lost-youth |language=en}}

=Music=

While working on Traveling Sprinkler, Nicholson Baker posted some songs made in the style of protagonist Paul Chowder on YouTube. The ballads combined dance music with protest songs and dealt with foreign policy agenda.[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhryGfK7Rbw "Jeju Island"], 2012 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYVHQlZ_h9s/ "Terrormaker"], 2012; [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zegtdFNxyU/ "When you intervene"], 2014; [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksevg5NoHUU/ "Nine Women Gathering Firewood"] and a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JVXUMkev-A"Whistleblower song"], 2014 Twelve songs were available in a deluxe e-book version of the novel and later on Bandcamp.

Awards

1997: James Madison Freedom of Information Award.
2001: National Book Critics Circle Award for Double Fold.{{cite web |last1=Foster |first1=Carter |title=The Writer's Hot Seat: Nicholson Baker |url=http://barnstormjournal.org/blog/the-writers-hot-seat-nicholson-baker/ |website=Barnstorm Journal |access-date=30 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191230213701/http://barnstormjournal.org/blog/the-writers-hot-seat-nicholson-baker/ |archive-date=30 December 2019 |date=16 October 2015}}
2014: Baker and his German translator Eike Schönfeld won the Calw Hermann Hesse Prize for the German translation of Double Fold.{{cite web |title=John Simon Guggenheim Foundation: Nicholson Baker |url=https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/nicholson-baker/ |access-date=30 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191230213431/https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/nicholson-baker/ |archive-date=30 December 2019 |date=2018}}
2018: Baker was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.

References

External links

{{Official website}}
{{C-SPAN|89092}}

{{cite journal| url=http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6097/the-art-of-fiction-no-212-nicholson-baker| title=Nicholson Baker, The Art of Fiction No. 212| author= Sam Anderson| date=Fall 2011| journal=The Paris Review | volume=Fall 2011| issue=198}}
[http://www.randomhouse.com/author/results.pperl?authorid=1229 Nicholson Baker] at Random House, author page
[https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/books/04bake.html?8dpc=&_r=3&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print Nicholson Baker, "A Debunker on the Road to World War II"]. New York Times, March 4, 2008
Cox, Richard J. "[http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_12/cox/index.html The Great Newspaper Caper: Backlash in the Digital Age]"
Grimes, William. "[https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/12/books/12grim.html?fta=y "Say What? It Wasn’t a Just War After All?]" New York Times Book Review
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/apr/10/wikipedia.internet "How I fell in love with Wikipedia]". Guardian. April 10, 2008
"[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2008/mar/20/the-charms-of-wikipedia/ The Charms of Wikipedia]" New York Review of Books, volume 55, number 4, March 20, 2008 (subscription required, see also [https://www.msu.edu/~jmonberg/415/Schedule_files/Baker%20on%20Charms%20of%20Wikipedia.pdf here]).
[https://web.archive.org/web/20101025035328/http://backstoryradio.org/2008/06/the-war-at-home-the-history-of-controversial-wars/ Interview about "Human Smoke"] on "BackStory" radio program
"[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/03/090803fa_fact_baker?currentPage=all Can the Kindle really improve on the book?]" New Yorker, August 3, 2009. On the Kindle reading device.
[http://lewisfrumkes.com/radioshow/tag/nicholson-baker A radio interview with Nicholson Baker] Aired on the Lewis Burke Frumkes Radio Show.
Wroe, Nicholas. "[https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2009/sep/19/nicholson-baker-interview A Life in Writing]". Guardian, 19 September 2009. An interview.
[http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/bw/bw920504nicholson_baker KCRW Bookworm Interview] May 4, 2002
[https://web.archive.org/web/20170128224528/http://cle.ens-lyon.fr/anglais/nicholson-baker-on-his-literary-career-and-how-he-came-to-write-about-sex-156617.kjsp Nicholson Baker on his literary career and how he came to write about sex] La Clé des langues - 2012