Product Description
This digital document is an article from The Review of Contemporary Fiction, published by Review of Contemporary Fiction on June 22, 2003. The length of the article is 2146 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Nicholson Baker. A Box of Matches.(Book Review)
Author: D. Quentin Miller
Publication: The Review of Contemporary Fiction (Refereed)
Date: June 22, 2003
Publisher: Review of Contemporary Fiction
Volume: 23Issue: 2Page: 127(1)

Article Type: Book Review

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This digital document is an article from Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada, published by Bibliographical Society of Canada on March 22, 2002. The length of the article is 1144 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Nicholson Baker. Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper. (book review)
Author: Peter F. McNally
Publication: Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada (Refereed)
Date: March 22, 2002
Publisher: Bibliographical Society of Canada
Volume: 40Issue: 1Page: 108(4)

Article Type: Book Review

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This digital document is an article from Australian Academic & Research Libraries, published by Thomson Gale on December 1, 2005. The length of the article is 811 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Vandals in the Stacks? A Response to Nicholson Baker's Assault on Libraries.(Book review)
Author: R.L. Cope
Publication: Australian Academic & Research Libraries (Magazine/Journal)
Date: December 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 36Issue: 4Page: 255(2)

Article Type: Book review

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Product Description
Chapters: Stephen Ambrose, Len Deighton, A. J. P. Taylor, Correlli Barnett, Nicholson Baker, William L. Shirer, B. H. Liddell Hart, Martin Gilbert, Nigel Hamilton, Ken Hechler, Carlo D'este, Simon Kitson, Sir Fitzroy Maclean, 1st Baronet, Bruce Barrymore Halpenny, David Glantz, Roman Jarymowycz, Telford Taylor, Antony Beevor, John Keegan, Richard Landwehr, S.l.a. Marshall, Richard Overy, Tony Banham, Øystein Sørensen, Michael Howard, Harry Hinsley, Michael Carver, Baron Carver, Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, George Odgers, Gavin Long, Thomas M. Hatfield, Denis Whitaker, Anthony Read, Tim Greve, Norman Franks, Gordon Prange, William Deakin, Charles Whiting, Robert Cowley, David William Fraser, Tore Pryser, Charles B. Macdonald, Ladislas Farago, John Toland, Edwin Palmer Hoyt, Michael Burleigh, Kenneth Macksey, Gary Sheffield, John Erickson, John A. English, Frank Walker, Forrest Pogue, Christopher Pugsley, Henri Amouroux, Ungváry Krisztián, Richard Woytak, Dan Van Der Vat, James Rusbridger, Jon Latimer, Denis Richards, Hans Fredrik Dahl, William T. Y'blood, Ian Hawkins, Adrian Gilbert, Marc Milner, Andrew Mollo, Brian Reid, Ronald Lewin, Berit Nøkleby, Arthur D. Morse, Stephen Bungay, Terry Copp, Šemso Tucakovi?. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 316. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Alan John Percival Taylor, FBA (25 March 1906 7 September 1990) was a renowned English historian of the 20th century. Taylor was born in Birkdale, near Southport, of Scottish descent and was brought up in Lancashire. He was educated at various Quaker schools including Bootham School in York. As a student he was described by his headmasters to be brilliant and rebellious. Initially he had an interest in archaeology, and as a young man he was an amateur expert in the history and archaeology of churches in norther...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=140444 ... Read more

Product Description
Joseph Pulitzer's New York World flourished at the turn of the twentieth century, and out of it grew what we think of as the modern daily paper. The World was famous for muckracking and sensationalism, but to a contemporary eye what is most striking about the paper (and in particular the Sunday edition) is that it was filled with colorful art--caricatures, full-page cartoons, disaster drawings, fiction illustrations, hand-lettered typography, weird science, halftone photographs, maps, and more.

For THE WORLD ON SUNDAY, Baker and coauthor Margaret Brentano have selected 85 of the finest examples of period reporting, bold and playful graphic design, long-lost comic strips, and society pieces from the heyday of the World for reproduction in this delightful oversized volume. Baker's introductory essay argues the significance and beauty of Pulitzer's paper, and Brentano's detailed captions and notes accompany the colorful reproductions throughout.

THE WORLD ON SUNDAY is a visual treasure trove that appeals to newspaper and history buffs as well as graphic designers, artists, and writers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

What Preceeded the Golden Age of American Comics
I am a fan of the "Golden Age" of American Comics which ran from the late 1930's through the 1940's."The World on Sunday" is a compilation of some of the best graphic art that appeared in Joseph Pulitzer's "The World" from 1898 to 1911.Most fans of American comic book history know about the history of the early American comic strips of this period.The creators of the Golden Age undoubtedly were influenced by these early comic strips.However, they always were profoundly influed by the rich visual art work that came out in the newspapers of the era. "The World on Sunday" is beautifully produced and is a must purchase for all those interested in American popular culture.Finally, I would also recommend Cordula Lebeck's "Kiosk".In this volume, Lebeck follows the development of popular journalism into the age of photography in the 1930's.

A lush example of newspaper history at its finest.
Joseph Pulitzer's New York WORLD flourished at the turn of the 20th century and grew from a modern daily paper to a sensationalist publication packed with striking colorful art, from photos to cartoons and drawings. THE WORLD ON SUNDAY gathers over a hundred of the best from WORLD and places them in an oversized presentation to display their color on single and double-page spreads. A chronological arrangement lends to a fine sequence of reproductions tracing editorial and news highlights of the times, while colorful commentary accompanies the pieces and provides the necessary background for appreciation by all audiences. THE WORLD ON SUNDAY: GRAPHIC ART IN JOSEPH PULITZER'S NEWSPAPER (1898-1911) is a top pick not just for art or newspaper library holdings, but for general-interest collections as well: it captures the art, craft and style of a bygone era and is a lush example of newspaper history at its finest.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Homage to Baker and Brentano
As a librarian, I am horrified, but unfortunately not too surprised to learn that few libraries have kept back issues of the newspaper put out by one of the great figures in USA publishing. And that's before I saw how beautiful it is!The idea that not only all this information but all this art was nearly lost is appalling.(I'm glad Duke University took it, but I hope the gift requires them to return it if they decide to throw it out.)I've been on the losing end of these fights, and no, one can't always assume that someone else kept the material.

Meanwhile, enjoy a glorious and gorgeous piece of historic publishing. I had no idea that color printing was so widely used ad so good at such an early time. The pictures often show great artistic skill and witty humor.There are also some fascinating bits of newpaper history.

A fantastic gift to the nation and the world. I can only show my appreciation by buying my own copy.

Old-Timey Magic
A treasure of a lost time and a lost art. Aside from the short-life expectancy and lack of modern conveniences like, uh, cars, ATMs, antibiotics, radio, microwave ovens, television, computers, etc., this book makes you wish you lived back then- when science, technology, and journalism were in their infancy and every day held some new, authentic wonder- not just a smaller cell phone. It's also quite amazing to see how advertisements, typefaces, layouts, and prose have radically changed in a century, and not necessarily for the better- unless you're one of those "Form Follows Function" kooks. A must for all you Luddites out there.

Thank you NIcholson and Margaret!!
This book celebrates one of the high points in American popular culture.In the late 1800's, Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the New York World, purchased the first great high quality color printer for newspapers.He then used it to publish beautiful color graphics every Sunday.This is both great art and great entertainment.But the story of how the author Nicholson Baker and his wife, Margaret Brentano, tracked down the last surviving complete collection of this work just before it was to be lost forever is just as thrilling.This is an exquisite book that is the product of great work by great people.Get ready to enjoy a true treasure. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Needed corrective
Baker's book is brilliant. It gives a much needed corrective to the usual glorification of war kinds of history books. The weapons industry won the war, not the poor people who died in it due to the monstrous vanity of Churchill, Hitler, and FDR. FDR actually comes off better than the other two who are portayed as kind of unwitting allies as they conspire to destroy Europe. Read the book with an open mind.

And if you want to read about "glory" and war, then read the Iliad.

Chesterton, pacifism and this author
G. K. Chesterton aptly described authors who write books such as this one, noting: "He is cold, he is caddish, he is an intellectual bully, and his intellect is itself vapid and thin. He is marked by an imaginative insufficiency which can be compared to nothing except to finding a Commander, in the thick of battle, looking into a pocket-mirror instead of a field-glass."

Asked to look at the bloodiest war in human history, Nicholas Baker consults his pocket-mirror and is delighted to find himself both handsome and brilliant, or as his inside cover copy puts it, he is a "bestselling author... recognized as one of the most dextrous and talented writers in America today." Never heard of him? Well, neither have I. Take note of the fact that millions died, bravely, tragically, cruelly or needlessly in the war described by Human Smoke, but all the inside and outside cover talks about is Nicholson Baker.

Chesterton was actually describing an earlier pacifist author, Norman Angell, but his description holds true for Baker. His intellect is vapid. He does seem to think he's boldly demolishing "treasured myths" about WWII. He hasn't read much. Virtually every event in it has been written about from numerous angles. Consider for instance, the most treasured myth of all, December 7, 1941 as the" a day that will live in Infamy," and note all the 'FDR knew Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor' books that have been published. Talk with people from that generation, as I have done, and you'll soon realize that virtually no myth about the war lacks a counter-myth. In short, Baker's book is a lazy book, one built on press gossip from the war years, some of it true, some of it dubious, and all of passed through a vain little mind with an axe to grind. I prefer to get my history from historians.

I should talk about his axe. There's been a lot of unnecessary emotional reaction to this book because people react to Baker's surface arguments without realizing the core attitude that drives writers such as Baker and his ideological kin. Pacifist writers typically regard themselves as morally superior to people such as Churchill or FDR. Noman Angell displayed that attitude in 1933, after Hitler took power in Germany, when he proudly claimed in a book: "No one pretends now--as the papers quoted above used to pretend--that war was due to the special wickedness of Germans, the sudden swoop of the satanic wolf in a peaceful work lusting to each such harmless lambs as France and Russia." Silly people, thinking Germany might launch a nasty war when we wise pacifists know better.

What both Angell and Baker believe in is called "moral equivalence," From the heights of their superior morality, the distinction between Britain and Nazi Germany or between a Churchill and a Hitler is of no significance. All such people are pigmies, alike in their smallness, while they are giants, knowing that war is never necessary and always bad. That's one reason why this book upsets people who still have a healthy moral perspective.

The result is history. Unable to tell good from evil, pacifists smear the good and bad with the same brush, as a result aiding those who are evil. Chesterton got it right when he noted that, "Pacifism and Prussianism [Militarism] are always in alliance, by a fatal logic far beyond an conscious conspiracy." Both would have might triumph over right, that is if after reading them you can even tell the difference between might and right.

Read Chesterton if you want to understand war. In 1932 he was warning that Germany was about to acquire a dictator and that the next war would begin with a border dispute between Germany and Poland. Take a pass pass on Baker. He's not worth your time.

--Michael W. Perry, editor of Chesterton on War and Peace: Battling the Ideas and Movements that Led to Nazism and World War II ... Read more

Product Description
Nicholson Baker, known for hisexuberantly detailed comedies of ordinary life, now turns his attention to the inner landscape of a nine-year-old American girl, Eleanor Winslow, who is spending a semester at an English school. In this good-natured and very entertaining book, Nory reawakens our images of childhood and captivates us with sophisticated insights. Her observations are hilarious as she tells herself stories, defends a classmate, has nightmares about cows, and generally does her best to make sense of life's particulars, noting it all down with innocence and candor.
        The bestselling author of Vox and The Fermata, Baker has been called "the best American writer of his generation" by Vanity Fair. Like all of his fiction, including earlier novels Mezzanine and Room Temperature, The Everlasting Story of Nory celebrates Baker's mastery of language and talent for nuance. Here is a funny, poignant, complicated book for grown-ups about the wisdom and strangeness that can exist in a child's mind. ... Read more