The Anthologist, Nicholson Baker
The Anthologist, Nicholson Baker
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The Anthologist
A Novel

Author: Nicholson Baker

Narrator: Nicholson Baker

Unabridged: 6 hr 48 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 03/22/2010

Synopsis

The Anthologist is narrated by Paul Chowder—a once-in-a-while-published kind of poet who is writing the introduction to a new anthology of poetry. He's having a hard time getting started because his career is floundering; his girlfriend Roz has recently left him; and he is thinking about the great poets throughout history who have suffered far worse and deserve to feel sorry for themselves. He has also promised to reveal many wonderful secrets and tips and tricks about poetry, and it looks like the introduction will be a little longer than he'd thought.

What unfolds is a wholly entertaining and beguiling love story about poetry: from Tennyson, Swinburne, and Yeats to the moderns (Roethke, Bogan, Merwin) to the staff of the New Yorker, what Paul reveals is astonishing and makes one realize how incredible important poetry is to our lives. At the same time, Paul barely manages to realize all of this himself, and the result is a tenderly romantic, hilarious, and inspired novel.

About Nicholson Baker

Nicholson Baker is the author of ten novels and five works of nonfiction, including The Anthologist, The Mezzanine, and Human Smoke. 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. He lives in Maine with his wife, Margaret Brentano; both his children went to Maine public schools.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Paul on February 04, 2015

Yes, hello! Take a seat - that one, please. No, just shove that stuff on the ground somewhere, it's just books and papers. Have some tea. Well, since you ask, not too bad - not too bad at all. This? Oh yes, it looks terrible doesn't it, I should have changed my shirt. It's all from this little scrat......more

Goodreads review by MJ on February 11, 2012

How true it is a poem should rhyme! For who among us prefers lemon to lime? Baker defends the rhyming verse, in prose both chaste and terse. Paul Chowder discusses meter, rests and beats—but he’s no bleater, pest or Keats. For those au fait with his minimal writings, buy this today for liminal sight......more

Goodreads review by switterbug (Betsey) on February 26, 2011

Paul Chowder is a minor poet and a perennial procrastinator. Although recognized at one time for a few brilliant poems, he has waned from the public eye. He is given the opportunity to resurrect his name and his bank account by writing an introduction to an anthology of poems, but he dawdles and del......more

Goodreads review by L.S. on May 11, 2022

Baker's deep dive into poetry analysis and history succeeds on every level except for his audiobook narration, which is uneven, ranging from blasting your ear drums out to indecipherable murmurs. The whole book is a poetic interlude about an anthologist failing to write a poetry book introduction. T......more

Goodreads review by Nancy on August 13, 2011

Well, this may be the most delightful book I have read this year. Paul Chowder's life isn't going particularly well. Sometime poet and current anthologist, he is struggling to write an intro to his anthology of poetry,Only Rhyme. But his chronic procrastinating has left him without a girlfriend, wi......more

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