Nicholson baker double fold book

Welcome to art works, the program that goes behind the scenes with some of the nations great artists to explore how art works. Nicholson baker lives in maine, with his wife and children, where he is trying to write the novel he was writing before he got caught up in the issues of his latest book. Double fold by nicholson baker penguin random house canada. First, bakers tome requires detailed responses from many sectors of the library, archives, and preservation. Baker argues passionately for preservation, even cashing in his own retirement account to save one important archiveall twenty tons of it. In this disturbing and suretobecontroversial book, novelist and essayist nicholson baker makes a. In his first and as far as i know his best book the mezzanine, nicholson baker displays a charming affection for the antique, the mechanical, the ingenious. Nicholson baker with his son, elias, in berkeley in 1994. Paper lion nicholson baker fights to save books and.

Published in 2001, double fold is a nonfiction work on the preservation of old newspapers, and the u. Libraries and the assault on paper nicholson baker, author double. He was born in manhattan in 1957 and grew up in rochester, new york. He has published ten novels and has written about poetry, literature, history, politics, time manipulation, youth, and sex. Buy nicholson baker ebooks to read online or download in pdf or epub on your pc, tablet or mobile device. 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. In the work, the novelist tries to perceive the world through the eyes of an inquisitive nineyearold american young girl seeking her education in england. A pacifist, he wrote human smoke about the buildup to world war ii. Nicholson unfolds his own growing amazement, disbelief and bewilderment at the. Those tiny blackandwhite reproductions are often the only way to consult past issues of newspapers in university libraries. It would be easy to dismiss nicholson bakers new book double fold as a polemic, the conspiratorial rantings of a cranky novelist who knows nothing about his. Double fold, a manifesto against libraries overeager to dump their physical books and. The lower right corner of the page is folded up into a triangle and then folded back to the other side of the page to a breaking point.

Double fold nicholson baker pdf download kosmobookz. Saa councils response to nicholson bakers double fold introduction. Nicholson baker is the author of nine novels and four works of nonfiction, including double fold, which won a national book critics circle award, and house of holes, a new york times notable book of the year. Since the 1950s, writes baker, american libraries have been microfilming newspapers and discarding the originals because, they claimed, paper manufactured since 1850 from. In this startling, witty, and inexhaustibly inventive novel, new york timesbestselling author nicholson baker uses a onestory escalator ride as the occasion for a dazzling reappraisal of everyday objects and rituals.

Baker has done extensive research, interviewing many prominent librarians, as well as the buyers and sellers of unique library. A catalog of primary sources creatively fashioned by novelist and national book critics circle awardwinner baker double fold. I consider it a work in progress, for three reasons. That is writer nicholson bakerhes just one of the authors wholl be reading at the neas poetry and prose pavilion at this weekends national book festival. Baker, a novelist who won the national book critics circle award for his passionate advocacy of paper records, double fold, chronicles his. Double fold by nicholson baker a crusading novelist indicts americas libraries for destroying precious archives of newspapers and books and.

Anyone with a collegelevel education is probably familiar with microfiche. Librarians and archivists mostly by implication are being discussed in publications like the new york times. Nicholson baker does not look like a dirtybook writer. Nicholson baker cofounder and director american newspaper. The books title comes from the double fold test if a page corner breaks after being folded back and forth twice, librarians dub the book unusable, ripe for junking after being microfilmed. Novelist nicholson baker is an unapologetic friend of paperand his book double fold is an important expose of the mass dumping of bound newspaper volumes by libraries in favor of vastly inferior microform copies. An excerpt of the book first appeared in the new yorker in 2002. The ostensible purpose of a library is to preserve the printed word.

Born in new york city, he lives in south berwick, maine, with his family. A true story is a nonfiction and selfexploration of the way readers engage with authors works. In 2014, after a brief orientation course and a few fingerprinting sessions, nicholson baker became an oncall substitute teacher in a maine public school district. Bakers new book, double fold, which won the us national book critics circle award last week and is published in the uk this month, is a microscopically researched tirade against the practice. From the back cover got me, as he intended, hopping mad. Using period sources such as newspaper articles, excerpts from speeches and diaries and congressional testimony, baker presents an inthemoment reenactment of. Libraries and the assault on paper is his singular and impassioned description of american libraries systematic dismantling of our newspaper archives and the. He then wrote about the american library system in his 2001 nonfiction book double fold.

Baker makes clear that the dangers of brittle books have been much overhyped. His pen is a lance with which he delights in skewering those he considers fools, enemies, or just wellmeaning people with wrongheaded ideas. Thats why they also manufactured a brittle books crisis based largely on the inappropriate doublefold test that gives. He has received a national book critics circle award, a james madison freedom of information award, the herman hesse prize, and the katherine anne porter award from the.

In his 2001 essay, double fold, baker launched a broadside against the worldwide movement to replace library newspaper archives with microfiche copies. Written the brilliant narrative style that nicholson baker fans have come to expect, double fold is a persuasive and often devastating book that may turn out to be the jungle of the american library system. About double fold the ostensible purpose of a library is to preserve the printed word. Libraries and the assault on paper is a fiery polemic dedicated to the task of protecting what he sees as one of our nations most important resources.

An emphatic no is the conclusion reached by bestselling novelist and acclaimed essayist nicholson baker in his certain to be controversial new book, double fold. Get through a few paragraphs, up out of the chair, go do something for a few hours, then back at it. This essay is a preliminary effort to assess the implications of nicholson bakers new book on library preservation. Paul chowder, the poet protagonist of nicholson baker s widely acclaimed novel the anthologist, is turning fiftyfive and missing his exgirlfriend, roz, rather desperately. With meticulous detective work and bakers wellknown explanatory power, double fold reveals a secret history of microfilm lobbyists, former cia agents, and.

Since the 1950s, writes baker, american libraries have been microfilming. He has won the national book critics circle award, the hermann hesse prize, and a katherine anne porter award from the american academy of arts and letters. All writers of course love the printed word, but few. Double fold is a book for people like me and nicholson baker is a guy i like. Nory winslow wants to be a dentist or a designer of popup books. They have methodically dismantled their collections of original bound newspapers, cut up hundreds of. 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. Nicholson baker is the author of ten novels and five works of nonfiction, including the anthologist, the mezzanine, and human smoke. An early draft of human smoke was a sort of quest narrative, he said a book about a nicholson bakerlike figure trying to learn the truth about world war ii until his wife talked him out of it. A national book critics circle awardwinner elevates the ordinary events that occur to a man on his lunch hour into a constant delight of a novel the boston globe.

Libraries and the assault on paper is a nonfiction book by nicholson baker that was published in april 2001. Nicholson baker was born in 1957 and attended the eastman school of music and haverford college. The standard test for determining if a book is brittle and therefore supposedly usable is the double fold test. Winner of the national book critics circle award, nicholson baker has established himself as one of our most brilliant observers of everyday experience. In his double fold 2001, baker accuses librarians of disregarding their roles and their obsession with technology, at the expense of historical and public preservation. Nicholson baker is a contemporary american writer of fiction and nonfiction. Libraries and the assault on paper is a nonfiction book by nicholson baker that was published in april, 2001.

But in double fold this charming affection is stripped away, revealing an impractical ludditism. Libraries and the assault on paper by nicholson baker. Nicholson baker since the 1950s, our countrys libraries have followed a policy of destroying to preserve. In 1999, he founded the american newspaper repository, a collection of nineteenth and twentiethcentury newspapers.

An excerpt appeared in the july 24, 2000 issue of the new yorker, under the title deadline. I always hesitate to bring it up because it gets a lot of librarians very hot under the collar, and i think reveals a disconnect between what the public thinks librarians do and what librarians think they should be doing. As he approaches the dreaded birthday, paul is uninspired by. Libraries and the assault on paper by nicholson baker 2002, paperback at the best. Written the brilliant narrative style that nicholson baker fans have come to expect, double fold is a persuasive and often devastating book that may turn out to be. This book is a beautiful example of polemical journalism i.