Nicholson Baker is an amphibian author of nine novels and four works of nonfiction, including Double Fold, which won a National Book Critics Circle award. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, and The New York Review of Books.
What is one to make of a world where libraries are being put at risk by digital scanning and microfilm? What is a person to do as more and more newspapers close down and people don't know what to read on their local commute or at the breakfast table?
Baker addresses these developments and plunges even further into the omnipresence of technology in essays on Google, Kindle, iPad, and Wikipedia. His curiosity and critical sense are at work in these pieces, and we are enlightened by his observations.
In one of our favorite selections Baker describes putting dots in the margins of books to highlight quotes or passages he likes or wants to use. He limits himself to 10 or 15 dots per book. That restraint is a good idea especially for information junkies who love to gather as many provocative quotes they can from the books they read.
Baker's piece on violent video games is scary. The author shifts gears in "One Summer," where he plays around with a writer's creative options, and in "Why I'm a Pacifist." He voices some very dangerous opinions about soldiers and violence, the military establishment, and the worship of the Allied cause in World War II.
Baker proves himself to be a diligent quester in search of lively and timely topics. He puts himself into these essays and then his inventive prose sends them skittering into our consciousness. We have found it best to let these essays simmer for a while.
