Nicholson Baker

On the Stovetop of Sleep

I used to think that it was a bad thing to mention dreams in fiction. I’d read an essay by John Leonard, I believe it was, in The New York Times Book Review sometime in the late Seventies, in which he said that dreams in novels were a mistake. But I rejected that notion ages ago.

We Don’t Know the Language We Don’t Know

One Saturday last month I went to Lafayette Park in Washington D.C., across the street from the White House, in order to protest several wars.

Letter to John Updike

Letter to John Updike

Twenty-five years ago, when I was twenty-eight and trying to write a novel, I sent this fan letter to John Updike. I lived in Brookline, Massachusetts, back then, and my girlfriend, now my wife, lived in Boston. I printed the letter out all on one page, with narrow margins, using my new Kaypro computer and Juki daisywheel printer. Updike didn’t answer—he couldn’t, because I didn’t put a return address on the envelope.

The Charms of Wikipedia

Leading with the Grumper

Survival of the Fittest