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The Way the World Works, Nicholson Baker's ranges over the map of life to examine what ails us, what eases our pain, and what gives us joy. Baker-recently hailed as "one of the most consistently enticing writers of our time" by The New York Times-moves from political controversy to the intimacy of his own life, from forgotten heroes of pacifism to airplane wings, telephones, paper mills, David Remnick, Joseph Pulitzer, the OED, and the manufacture of the Venetian gondola. In one essay, Baker surveys our fascination with video games while attempting to beat his teenage son at Modern Warfare 2; in a celebrated essay on Wikipedia, he describes his efforts to stem the tide of encyclopedic deletionism. Through all these pieces Baker shines the light of an inexpugnable curiosity; The Way the World Works is a keen-minded, generous-spirited compendium by a modern American master.
About the Author
Nicholson Baker was born in 1957 and attended the Eastman School of Music and Haverford College. He is the author of several novels, including The Mezzanine, Vox and The Fermata, and House of Holes; and four works of non fiction, U and I, The Size of Thoughts, Double Fold (winner of the 2002 National Book Critics Circle Award), and Human Smoke. He lives in Maine.
"Mr. Baker is a wise and amiable cultural commentator worth listening to. . . . [his] prose is polished, witty . . . his essays are always provocative and entertaining."--Cynthis Crossen "The Wall Street Journal "
| Foreword | p. ix |
| Life | |
| String | p. 1 |
| Coins | p. 9 |
| How I Met My Wife | p. 13 |
| La Mer | p. 15 |
| Why I Like the Telephone | p. 19 |
| What Happened on April 29, 1994 | p. 21 |
| Sunday at the Dump | p. 23 |
| Writing Wearing Earplugs | p. 28 |
| One Summer | p. 29 |
| Reading | |
| Thorin Son of Thráin | p. 43 |
| Narrow Ruled | p. 46 |
| Inky Burden | p. 56 |
| No Step | p. 59 |
| I Said to Myself | p. 66 |
| Defoe, Truthteller | p. 75 |
| From A to Zyxt | p. 84 |
| The Nod | p. 89 |
| David Remnick | p. 94 |
| Libraries and Newspapers | |
| Truckin' for the Future | p. 105 |
| If Libraries Don't Do It, Who Will? | p. 128 |
| Reading the Paper | p. 135 |
| The Times in 1951 | p. 141 |
| Take a Look at This Airship! | p. 149 |
| Sex and the City, Circa 1840 | p. 159 |
| Technology | |
| Grab Me a Gondola | p. 169 |
| The Charms of Wikipedia | p. 188 |
| Kindle 2 | p. 206 |
| Papermakers | p. 227 |
| Google's Earth | p. 236 |
| Steve Jobs | p. 242 |
| War | |
| Why I'm a Pacifist | p. 247 |
| We Don't Know the Language We Don't Know | p. 275 |
| Painkiller Deathstreak | p. 287 |
| Last Essay | |
| Mowing | p. 311 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 315 |
| Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved. |
ISBN: 9781416572473
ISBN-10: 1416572473
Audience:
General
Format:
Hardcover
Language:
English
Number Of Pages: 317
Published: 1st August 2012
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Dimensions (cm): 22.1 x 14.6
x 2.7
Weight (kg): 0.426
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