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Longform

Episode 412: Nicholson Baker

Longform

Longform

Education, Arts, Books, News

4.71.9K Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2020

⏱️ 69 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Nicholson Baker is the author of 18 books of fiction and nonfiction. He has written for The New Yorker, Harper’s, and many other publications. His latest book is Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act. "In the end, I don’t care how famous you get, how widely read you are during your lifetime. You’re going to be forgotten. And you’re going to have five or six fans in the end. It’s going to be your grandchildren or your great-grandchildren are going to say, Oh, yeah, he was big. … So I think the key is, write what you actually care about. Because in the end, you’re only doing this for yourself. … So maybe do your best stuff for yourself and for the three, four, five people who know in the coming century that you ever existed. That’s all you need to do." Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @nicholsonbaker8 nicholsonbaker.com The Mezzanine (Grove Press • 1988) Baseless (Penguin Press • 2020) 10:00 Human Smoke (Simon & Schuster • 2009) 10:00 "Wrong Answer" (Harper's • Sept 2013) 11:00 Room Temperature (Grove Press • 2010) 11:00 U and I (Random House • 2000) 11:00 The Fermata(2000) 12:00 "The Projector" (New Yorker • Mar 1994) 12:00 The Size of Thoughts (Vintage Contemporaries • 1996) 13:00 "The Author vs. the Library" (New Yorker • Oct 1996) 19:00 Double Fold (Vintage • 2002) 30:00 Lab 257 (Michael Carroll • Willam Morrow Paperbacks • 2005) 33:00 Longform Podcast #192: Seymour Hersh 33:00 The Killing of Osama Bin Laden (Seymour Hersh • Verso • 2017) 33:00 Longform Podcast #321: Nicholas Schmidle 33:00 "Getting Bin Laden" (Nicholas Schmidle • New Yorker • Aug 2011) 46:00 Baker's New Yorker archive Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Support for this show comes from Krakan.

0:03.0

Krypto is like the financial system, but different.

0:07.0

It doesn't care where you come from, what you look like, your credit score,

0:11.0

or your outrageous food delivery habits.

0:13.7

crypto is finance for everyone everywhere all the time.

0:18.4

Krakhan, see what crypto can be.

0:21.3

Don't invest unless you're prepared to lose all the money you invest.

0:25.0

This is a high-risk investment,

0:26.4

and you should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong.

0:29.1

Hey, this is Lindsay People's Editor-in-Chief of the Cut.

0:35.0

This month on our podcast, In Her Shoes, we talked to designer Mara Hoffman.

0:39.0

Hoffman was just awarded CFDA's Environmental Sustainability Award and also released her first dress made entirely from recycled fabric.

0:48.0

We hope you'll join us for this month's series sponsored by evening.

0:53.0

E-E-Bing.

0:55.0

Hello, welcome to the long-front podcast.

1:00.0

I speak through Zoom to my co-host, Max Linsky and

1:06.2

Evan Ratliff.

1:07.2

Hey guys, hello, image of Aaron on the screen?

1:10.6

This episode took place on the screen.

1:13.6

It was the rare episode where I had video on.

1:15.8

I don't know, I don't know what you want to read into that,

1:18.1

but I, we video chatted this episode.

...

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