Ardeth, a graduate student, is kidnapped one day as she's already terrified about some friends of hers who have disappeared. She isn't killed, as she fears, but thrown into a cell to be the food source for a vampire, Dmitri Rozokov, who has been a prisoner since he woke from a hundred-year sleep a couple of weeks earlier. But being fed on every night can't really do a lot for someone's health - how long can Ardeth stay alive? Or will she choose some other way of surviving?

This book isn't a love story. Get that idea out of your head straight away. If you want a vampire romance, go somewhere else. There is a nice kiss while Ardeth is still a prisoner, but that's about it for romance. For example, after Ardeth's transformation and their break for freedom (referred to in other reviews), they go on a killing spree, and then Baker refers, in ONE SENTENCE, to them having sex among the dead bodies. Nope, not one bit romantic.

In any case, Ardeth and Dmitri then spend much of the remainder of the book separated. The body-count increases from then on, and the violence and brutality continues. Not a pleasant read.

This book won't be staying in my house, and nor will I be reading anything else by Nancy Baker. I like vampire romances, but this certainly doesn't qualify.

Nancy Baker's "Kiss of the Vampire" begins with the waking of a long-dormant vampire. He has been asleep for about a century and finds out that the twentieth century holds a particularly nasty development for vampires--ultrasound. It is, therefore, rather easily that he is captured when he awakens. Shortly thereafter, Ardeth Alexander, a young graduate student, is abducted. She is taken captive and used as the food supply for the vampire.

In their dismal prison, the two, predator and prey, form an uneasy alliance against their captors. Though he takes from her without giving anything back, she has sympathy for him; he is, after all, as much a prisoner as she is, and the degradations he suffers are as bad as hers. With several women dead, Ardeth knows the fate planned for her, and she must decide whether to allow him to transform her into a vampire so that she can survive somehow.

"Kiss of the Vampire" (formerly "The Night Inside") is somewhat hard to classify. Certainly the vampires would seem to make the book fall within the horror genre, but the vampirism does not dominate the novel, much of which is a thriller that just happens to involve vampires. Unlike many thrillers, though, "Kiss of the Vampire" features an especially well-rounded protagonist. Ardeth Alexander is a complex character, a woman with flaws that make her seem very real. The vampire, a fifteenth-century Russian aristocrat, is also well drawn. These three-dimensional characters are what holds the book together through some of the slower spots (of which there are a few but not too many).

Not normally a vampire story fan, I found I couldn't put this book down (called "The Night Inside" in Canada). Like the two books after this ("Blood and Chrysanthemums", and "A Terrible Beauty"), Ms Baker has a way of creating sympathetic anti-heroes out of her vampire characters.

I highly recommend this as an engrossing story you can lose yourself in. Fans of the genre, and people who normally steer clear of horror will love this book!

Nicholson Baker, The Mezzanine (Vintage, 1988)
availability: in print, available through the usual suspects

Nicholson Baker's first novel gives us a day-- okay, half a day-- in the life of an ordinary office worker. It's pretty close to being the typical eighties novel. It's not really about anything. No one makes great personality changes anywhere in the novel. There's only one other character, aside from a few minor ones, sales clerks and the like. The book opens with the main character walking into the lobby of his office building, and ends with him stepping off the escalator onto his office's floor about a minute later. So what is it that differentiates this particular eighties novel from the hundreds of others, and what makes this one better?

The devil, of course, is in the details. While Baker seems as fond of brand names as the rest of his Ellis-McInerney-Janowitz-etc. cronies, they take a backseat to the generic, everyday revelations of life, and

it's amazing that Baker has managed to come up with so much of this stuff that most people never think about. The history of shoelaces. The development of footnotes from the middle ages. The archaeology of the drugstore. Whether you should drink your milk while chewing the chocolate chip cookie, or after swallowing it. This is less a novel than it is a compendium of silly, trivial facts and opinions, and if you gain pleasure from wandering through trivia websites and the like, this book

is going to be a short, easy pleasure trip through things that no one else has thought to write about. If you demand plot, theme, and action, though, this is probably not a book for you. I found it wonderful. *** 1/2

The undeniable appeal of "The Mezzanine" is almost impossible to explain to anyone who hasn't read it. Try it, sometime; tell someone "It's a 150 page book about what a guy thinks about as he goes up the escalator to his office." Not exactly an easy sell.

But it's a fantastic read. This is not just "some guy" who's sharing his interior monologue, it's a guy written by Nicholson Baker. That means he's funnier than you, smarter than you, and his meandering observations are bound to be entertaining. His neuroses are interesting, his thought processes bizarre (but no more bizarre than mine or yours).

So if the "plot" of the novel is "a guy goes up an escalator and sits down in his office," what is the novel about? It's about all of the tiny little thoughts that fly through our head, day in and day out. This is significant because these "unimportant" thoughts are our *lives.* All of these idle wonderings are what make us human and what makes each person an individual.

So walk a mile in Baker's head, and know him and yourself better.

Remember Sniglets? They started on "Saturday Night Live" and eventually entered book form. They were invented words that described something there isn't a word for, but should be. For example, an "essoasso" is the guy who cuts through the gas station parking lot to avoid a red light.

I loved Sniglets as a kid in the 80s, and now that I've read "The Mezzanine" as an adult, I love it too. Nicholson Baker takes those little things we all think about, like vending machines, and discusses every corner and nook of them, often with copious footnotes that are pages long. It was like reading a transcript of my own trains of thought, but written in a scientific way that I could not even fathom - yet it was very easy to understand. Oh, and it's all uproariously funny.

Baker tries again in "Room Temperature," only it's more focused (on his baby girl). If you like "Mezzanine," give "Room" a try, but this is the real gem.

Tom McMakin is a special person. He has to be; how else can one explain such a book from a corporate COO. I picked this book up on a lark when I read the jacket and learned that McMakin was the COO of Great Harvest. My wife and I love the bread and joke, at times, about junking our careers and getting a franchise. After reading Bread and Butter, we might just do it.

It is a Siddhartha for our times. Bread and Butter is a book that causes the reader to reflect on their life's path. McMakin weaves stories together in a way that makes baking bread a metaphor for introspection and renewal. The characters are role models for those seeking transformation.

All this and the book is a great read as well. McMakin gets your attention and keeps it with a writing style that is story telling at its best.

Get this book!

This is one of those books you can't put down. I raced through it eager to soak up every word, and then returned to underline salient points. It inspired me to make changes in my life. The most radical is - when confronted with work problems, stop! look within! get centered! do something nourishing for myself. Then return to the problem. It's amazing how many solutions pop into your head.

Great Harvest Bread Company, the nifty small business described in this book, started by a couple from a road side stand, operates with principles that inspire me to examine the way I work: operate at no debt, work less hours but put in quality time, and best of all, "be loose and have fun", the first line of the company's mission statement. I'm glad to sit at the feet of author Tom McMakin who loads his book with great stories and tips for living a sane and productive life.

I'll be buying a bunch of copies of Bread and Butter to give to friends and family. My Christmas shopping is done!

If you know anything about the franchise business, you will realize how truly subversive "Bread and Butter" is. No required recipes for the bread? No approvals necessary for décor or signage? And then there's the home office: no one can work more than forty hours a week. Vacations are required. There is no debt. Great Harvest's owners care about people as people: they expect and want their employees and franchisees to have lives outside of work. That's not a new story right now: everyone is jumping on the "fulfilled employee" bandwagon. But Great Harvest has been living this story for twenty-five years, and living it very successfully. It's a fascinating story.

But that's not the only story in "Bread and Butter." There's the story of its author, Tom McMakin, of his quest for meaning and happiness in life. You will not put this book down without asking yourself some deep and serious questions you may not have asked yourself in a long time. If you are not in touch with your spiritual side, watch out - your spiritual side is about to hit you in the side of the head like one of Elly Mae Clampett's rolls.

If your "to-do" list is bothering you, I have a suggestion. Add reading "Bread and Butter" to the top of your list, do it first, and when you finish, you get to tear up the list for good.

As a long-time Dismas Hardy and Abe Glitzky fan, this series just gets better and better. I just read the whole book during a snow day when I had better things to do, and I just couldn't put it down. The characters are familiar, and they've grown over the years, and Lescroart is so good at making it clear why real people can't live happily ever after... Dismas has come a long way, and his character continues to have depth and be interesting to observe. But best of all - this is a great thriller, a real page turner. Lots of twists and turns, and interesting political and social issues are represented all over the place. He has a nice touch writing about kids, about marriage, about relationships - okay, some of the stuff here is a little far-fetched but it's a mystery novel, that's why we read them. For new readers, start at the beginning of this series and work your way to the present - it will be worth it!

I have read several of John Lescroart's books, and each one is remarkably enjoyable. Unfortunately, I have not read them in sequential order, so that I find myself a bit surprised as to how Dismas Hardy's life has "progressed." Nevertheless, this series is so well-written, with enough referrals to previous incidents and cases, that each can stand on its own.

NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH is an immensely engrossing story. I found that the time line--four days to solve a murder that had occurred four weeks previously and had gone cold--in order to save his wife, Frannie, from suffering more indignities and consequences for protecting a friends's secret, was exciting and compelling. From the first chapter, I wanted to finish the book FAST! I love when a book hooks me like this, and that is what all of Lescroart's books do...grab you and keep you going and going until you reach the suprising, satisfying conclusion.

By the way, listening to one of his wonderful books on tape, HARD EVIDENCE, I learned his name is pronounced la-sqwaa--soft "a." Something fun to know!

Nothing but the Truth is the first John T. Lescroart novel I've read, but it certainly won't be my last!! I will definitely explore the rest of the Dismas Hardy series, and go from there.

In this book, Hardy is an attorney whose wife somehow gets "involved" in a murder investigation of their children's classmate's mother. In order to clear her name, as it were, Hardy works with a friend in Homicide and undertakes his own probing, and as it turns out, dangerous, investigation of the murder.

The book is a compelling read from page one. Although I freely admit I'm not the best at guessing "who done it", the twists and turns the investigation takes really blew my mind. The clues were there, but there was no way I could put it all together. I guess that's why I'm a reader and not a crime investigator ;)

I really can't recommend this book highly enough. I'm certainly looking forward to reading more of Mr. Lescroart's writing. Hopefully, you will too :D

The book Growing Up by Russell Baker was an interesting account of life before and after the Depression and the trials and traumas of life in that time. This autobiography has something for everyone such as humor, sexuality, and real life accounts that could refer to the reader's own experiences. This is a book that should be read by many curious readers. This book contained mounds and mounds of humor. The writer had no mercy when picking people apart in this book. He would pick fun at his second father, Herb, because of Herb's lack of intellectual ability and just because he was not his real father: "In meal conversations I addressed myself only to my mother or Doris, always managing to omit him (Herb) from the circle. When he interrupted to say, 'Pass the potatoes,' I passed the bowl silently without looking at him while continuing to talk to my mother and Doris." The author of this book also enjoyed to stress on sexuality. The author had a struggle with his "love" life. It seems that the curse of virginity followed him throughout his life in the Navy: "I located a very private place south of Coral Gables. We passed it each day en route to the airfield. She seemed willing enough. We pulled off the highway into marshy ground overhung by great spreading limbs and vines. She switched off the headlights and we embraced in the blackness, hungry for sin. The mosquitoes arrived immediately... She was screaming that they were eating her legs. She pushed me away, threw on the headlight beams, and crying, 'They'll eat us alive!' backed out and roared top-speed back to Miami cursing mosquitoes." The author had a talent that could make the reader think of instances in his or her life. By using this talent in Mr. Bakers writing, the reader asks his or herself "Has that happened to me before?" Growing Up by Russell Baker is definitely worth reading. It has all that you want in a historic account about the 1920's to the 1950's and more. This definitely is a book that can draw you in and never let you go.

Russell Baker brings his own life experiences to print as he pulls together the love, hate, anger, and various emotions of growing up into a masterpiece. The book is easy to read and addictive. The ending is emotional and could draw tears, the sign of a wonderful novel. Whether you're young or old, this book will bring back your own memories of childhood and your relationships with siblings, parents, and relatives

Required reading for my English class, I thought I would have to drag my feet through another boring book about war, but I found "Growing Up" both funny and heart-warming.

What makes Russell Baker's autobiography unique is that he does not cover his entire life. He tells of his humble beginnings, his mother, life during the depression (not the sterile textbook version), his schooling, his humorous escape from service during World War II, his big break in writing, and--the most touching of all--his one true love, Miriam.

Russell Baker writes vividly and in a straightforward manner, avoiding esoteric passages that plague books like "The Jungle." He has the quality of a storyteller that mesmerizes listeners. The only lull in the book can be found when discussing his mother's letters written during the Great Depression. A sentence or so into the last chapter I wanted to cry, not because it was sad or depressing (on the contrary, it was upbeat), but because Russell's writing was so moving.

I liked this book and its characters, though I had a hard time keeping up with their names. Usually when this happens to me, I blame it on the author not protraying them in such a way that they are memorable in my mind. I loved the premise of them living in the giant screen and the juxtaposition of classical music and a library beneath a raging dog kennal. It was a priceless visual! I just never got emotionally involved in the story to the point that I hated to put the book down. Bottom line.......it was an okay read on the airplane (I travel 200 days a year and read about five books a week!) Each time I found a gem of a chapter, it was followed by some disjointed and disappointing one...like a roller coaster.

This book was a good read but not quite in the can't-put-it-down category. It's about a 1960's nuclear family who operate a massive drive-in theater along Florida's Atlantic coast south of Jacksonville. The cast of characters grows to include a Scatman Crothers-type black handyman (only he's very short) and a part terrier/part wiener dog (who becomes unforgiveably vicious). Most of the doings concern the interplay between the lurid but fun cinema and the staid but necessary funeral chapel next door, especially the Romeo-and-Juliet substory of the narrator and his girl. The prose style hit the right buttons: it was neither too colloquial nor too U-of-Iowa-Workshop, if you know what I mean. Unfortunately, though, there was often some heavy-handed foreshadowing of events to come. Anticipating one tragic scene, we witness it through the eyes of a 16-year-old boy, the adult he has become, with symbolism, and with ironic detachment. In this sense the novel is over-engineered. Baker is too good at his craft; he's already experienced enough to go for an effect once and get it right. I look forward to his next book.

This is a delightful book with vivid characters that you want to meet! In fact, this book is so original and fun to read, I had to keep looking at the picture of Larry Baker and wonder -- how does he come up with these people and situations? It's easy to try and compare Baker with John Irving...since both have Iowa City roots...but I'd compare this book more to "The Shipping News" -- you actually LIKE the characters and care about what happens to them. Yes, yes, yes -- give it a try! Let's encourage MORE first time authors like Larry Baker.

The book was a pleasurable read.........Hannah Swenson, 30 year old unmarried lady, and owner of a coffeeshop/catering business called "The Cookie Jar", is a great character...filled with wit and charm....oh, and what a baker she is!! Living in a small Minnesota town of Lake Eden with her cat, Moisha, she discovers the body of Ron, a young man who often makes her deliveries of goodies to her customers....he was found sitting in his truck with a bullet hole in him.... It's highly unlikely that any policeman would ask a civilian for help in a mystery, but that's what her brother-in-law, the sheriff did....in spite of that, it was a cute read with good dialogue and likeable characters..........Loved how Hannah's mom was always trying to play "matchmaker".....am looking forward to more reads and more tasty cookie recipes to try!

There's nothing more fun for a cozy mystery reader than to discover a new author with a fresh voice whose work one can look forward to for years to come. The reader gets to know the characters quickly and well, so well, in fact, that I found myself thinking, 'Wouldn't it be funny in the next book if Delores.......' Even the publisher's marketing is fun in that the book is a chubby little thing, kind of like the old Orphan Annie books of long ago. Younger readers won't recall these, but they will doscover the charm of the concept when they first see this book. Ther heroine/detective is Hannah Swenson, a well eductaed twenty-something who was called away from her doctoral program to return to Lake Eden, Minnesota to assist her mother after her father's death. Lake Eden is a town of 3,000 where, as one would expect, everyone pretty well knows one another, or can find out about each other through a grapevine that winds its way from kitchens to local clubs to church socials and to "The Cookie Jar", (cookie recipes included) a coffee shop owned by Hannah and operated with the dedicated assistance of a local teenager, Lisa. Hannah is challenged by first one homicide and then another, and she views solving the crimes as a way to help her detective brother-in-law get a promotion. As it happens, Hannah's whole family becomes involved in one way or another and the results are funny. Particularly funny is her mother, Delores, whose abundance of free time allows her to try and find a husband for Hannah who has never been married and lives alone with a fat one-eyed cat named Moishe. Either we are like Hannah or we know someone like her. She wears old sneakers and a sweatshirt. She's blunt, funny and kind, and she doesn't see herself as the object of anyone's great desire, but watch what happens. If you enjoy cozy mysteries, by all means read this one, and then wait impatiently for the next.

When I read the review of this book in Publisher's Weekly, I had a strong suspicion I was going to like it. I was wrong. I loved it! In the tradition of Diane Mott Davidson, Joanne Fluke gives us a down-to-earth, girl-next-door heroine, who bakes wicked good cookies, came home to help take care of her [matchmaking] mother and is owned by a huge stray cat named Moishe. Oh yes, and she's tracking down a killer.

In this 'cozy' mystery, Ms. Fluke kept me guessing until the last chapter or so. Usually I have it figured out before then. I chuckled over Hannah's reasons for why Minnesotans did not rush out to buy Currier and Ives winter scenes and her endeavors to take her sister's mind off their discovery of a victim by plying her with inexpensive wine. I'm looking forward to the next in this series, as it looks as if Hannah may have herself a couple of fellows angling for her favor.

If you're looking for a pleasant way to spend an evening or two, you can't do much better than Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder. Oh, and the recipes look great, too!

Baker has done the world a great service by pointing out the inherent hypocrisy in the library profession. Supposedly, libraries are protecting our written heritage, but Baker's many examples of destruction of primary reading materials belies this claim. Further, the entire world of preservation, conservation and rare books is, err, rarefied. They are elitists (I work for one of the major research libraries villified by Baker, and come into contact with these folks, and their arrogance is palpable) and perform their sometimes anti-print magic behind vaulted doors, not even alterting their colleagues in other departments of their activities. I was shocked to learn about the double fold method which, as Baker points out so eloquently, is flawed. It is not a well-known procedure, even by other librarians.

It's incredible to me that libraries, which believe themselves to be collaborative, consortial players in the world information game, can't cooperate with their peers and preserve even a single copy of some of the titles he cites as having been thrown away. There is NO excuse for a collection of libraries to NOT have banned together, merged monies, and created a joint respository for these vanishing items. Alas, there is too much competition amongst institutions and blind patronage of Library of Congress policy. Moreover, too many former LC employees now head the top US libraries.

I applaud Baker for his courage to enter such a closed world. Too many within the profession are going to write scathing reviews here, but I'd encourage them to note the positive comments in the book. Baker respects librarians, adores them even. He just falls faint at the notion of losing so many primary source materials, and that is what is his motivation here. He is in some respects a historian, a man whose mind flies to new creative heights when he's holding a primary text in his hands. That his primary texts are US newspapers (this is his main example in the book, but there are others he could have chosen) should not minimize his commentary. Microfilm is NOT a 100% solution. Digital imaging is NOT cheap. Baker is NOT the liar, misintepreting the facts of preservation; librarians sometimes are, hiding the truth of their misguided activities.

I don't wish to impugn the profession, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the previous review was written by a defensive librarian. (And in Washington DC... why, whichever library could that be?) The mistake they - and, as Baker is arguing - and many other librarians are making is to see newspapers and microfilm as a simplistic either/or choice. (Wrecking books to speed the process of microfilming them can rather force that choice...) Baker is hard on the faults of microfilm in this book, yes, but as a corrective to the uncritical acceptance that it has too long enjoyed. Microfilm IS very useful, but it is not a complete substitute for the original. BOTH should be used, or at least retained.

Look at most press coverage of this issue, and in Baker's book, and you'll find that the people defending microfilm, and paper culls, are librarians or those in the information industry. NOT scholars or readers. I defy you to find a scholar who has not found themselves thwarted at some point by crummy and unreadable microfilm for which there was no paper backup. And as for acidification: I use old books and periodicals all the time, and sometimes they do crack or shed little chips of paper. But most are still usable, and will remain so for many years - especially those which are rarely used, which is often the case with older material. So why the rush to get rid of them?

Does Baker engage in some hyperbole in this book? Yeah, probably. Is he wrong to? I'm not so sure. The destruction he is describing, and the rate at which it is happening, requires a very loud wake-up call. If you're buying this expecting a Baker novel, I guess you will disappointed. But if you love books like his "The Size of Thoughts," or if you are simply someone who truly cares about old books and writing - and yes, I include most librarians in that group - then you really need to read this.

I don't even know where my library card is. I sincerely doubt I'd ever have much personal use for the books and newspapers Baker is so concerned about. But reading this book, I felt a terrific sense of loss for the materials that are no longer a able to be part of our culture. I also felt tremendous anger towards many librarians - a profession I have always respected greatly ever since I volunteered in my high school library - not the ones who seemed genuinely well-meaning and perhaps conflicted, but ones who, like Patricia Battin, seem to have absolutely zero qualm about lying to the public time and time again. (After reading this book, I hope that woman's professional reputation is 100% destroyed by Baker's revelations.)

This is far and away one of the most persuasive books I have ever, ever read. It doesn't matter whether one of his British Library sources was dubious--his most important claims are backed up by basic science, by undisputed (but previously hidden from the public) histories, by simple tests he can perform himself, and by the self-evident inadequacy of microfilm (check out the first set of pictures in the book). As the Kirkus review quoted on the back cover of my edition says, "If even half of what Baker alleges is true, some of America's most honored librarians have a lot of explaining to do." Quibbling over details aside, can anyone who has read Baker's book dispute his basic premise?

Let's be clear about what that premise is. As I read it, it isn't necessarily that anyone should be able to access the only copy of original newspapers, although Baker would certainly consider access to originals to be ideal. Baker makes a strong case that microfilm can be replaced by less destructive (than microfilm) copying measures such as photocopying, and that bound photocopies can be made available to the public in libraries.

I also understood Baker's main point to be that, whatever else may happen, original sources must not be destroyed. Can anyone doubt this? Arguing that babies ought not be allowed to drool on them seems almost irrelevant when, as Baker demonstrates, right now these newspapers are being *throw away* and replaced with a medium that is wholly inadequate in every way, from expense to longevity to picture quality to completeness and reliability to pleasure of viewing. It is hard to envision a scenario WORSE than what Baker convincingly describes as happening all around the country.

One person said that money for microfilm is easier to come by than money for storage - and I sure believe it, when all the famous and visible librarians are begging for money for microfilm and not saying a word about money for storage. Where was the failed effort to garner money for warehouses which would support the idea that librarians are only doing what they must when they allow our historical resources to be destroyed forever?

Finally: I don't care that Baker's television presence is lacking. Frankly, I think his words speak for themselves (and, incidentally, his and his wife's willingness to use both of their retirement funds saving some of the most incredible papers certainly speaks for his commitment more than almost any words could). I urge everyone to read this book. Regardless of what you decide should happen to precious library materials, I don't think you can doubt that what is being done now is a travesty. Even my non-library-using self must concede that something must be done immediately.

Deep in a Dream is a thoroughly researched and well written biography of Chet Baker. Baker was a one of the leading stars of West Coast jazz in the 50's and early 60's, and as he played trumpet, was at times held up as a white version of Miles Davis. This comparison was unfortunate; although gifted with a natural talent, Baker never matured into a major figure like Davis, and the one time they played on the same bill, Davis's group blew them away. Baker was also blessed with model-like looks (although by the time he died, he looked like a walking corpse), and often sang in an androgynous, subdued voice that many people found very moving. (Matt Damon imitates this in the Ripley movie, where he sings a Baker standard, My Funny Valentine, in the style of Baker.) Unfotunately, as this book documents thoroughly, Baker was a heroin addict for most of his adult life, and cared much more about getting drugs than anything else. Not surprisingly, this led to a downward spiral in his career. By the early 1960s he was getting bad reviews in the US, and relocated to Europe, leaving his family behind. He toured widely there, and became something of a cult figure.

Baker's life does not make for pleasant reading. He used people whenever he could, paid no attention to his children (other than to steal his son's trumpet on a rare visit home), and recorded primarily to get money to fund his drug habits. Since he always needed money right away, he usually signed away royalties in return for an advance. This left him perpetually broke. Eventually he died under mysterious circumstances (probably suicide) in Holland.

James Gavin has talked to just about everybody that had contact with Baker, as well as researching reviews of his performances and records. Gavin is clearly taken with Baker's music but does not hesitate to repeat the sometimes vitriolic reviews Baker received. As depressing as Baker's life is, Gavin has not written a slash and burn biography designed to show his subject as an awful person. His judgments seem quite fair. However, I would have liked more discussion of Baker's music -- what made his playing and singing popular even today. There is some discussion of this but not enough to convey why we should care about Baker as an artist. This book makes an interesting contrast with two biographies of Baker's contemporary Bill Evans (My Foolish Heart and Everything Happens to Me), who may have been as big a drug user, but whose biographies mention his drug use in passing and concentrate almost entirely on the music. The Evans's biographies probably go too far in neglecting his messy life, but they still do a good job of showing why Evans is still an important figure today.

Nevertheless, it is difficult to imagine anyone writing a biography of Baker as good as this one, and this is certainly the book to read if you want to know more about Chet Baker. There is also a tie-in CD, with the tracks selected by the author, that is an excellent introduction to Baker's music.

It's difficult to recreate the arrival of Chet Baker to the world of jazz. At that time, around 1950, the trumpet masters were Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespe, Fats Navarro, and the Stan Kenton trumpet section, with Maynard Fergueson, and Buddy Childers. These "monsters" played above high C. F's, G's, and yes even DOUBLE high C's were their daily vocabulary. Along comes a kid from Oklahoma, whose family settles near LA, who never practices, has no high register(if he ever played a high C, I've never heard it) and decides to confront these guys, and the public with his idea of jazz, and jazz singing.He is an immediate sensation. His chamber music approach to jazz trumpet playing affects many people as does his singing. There are those who rate him a spinoff of Miles Davis, and that his singing isn't singing at all. I rate him a true master in both categories. The only fly in the ointment was his discovery and love of heroin. It superceded everything in his life---loved ones(some say he only loved heroin) children, musical associates etc. James Gavin does a masterful job recreating a life if possible, more tragic than Art Pepper's, or Charley Parker's. It's not for the faint of heart. If you worship every note and vocal of this master as I do, it's a must.

Chet Baker had it all: an amazing musical talent, handsome looks, fans worldwide and a drug addiction that took it all away. In this extraordinary biography by James Gavin, we get an intimate glimpse at the artist. It's not pretty but it truly is riveting.

I, too, heard James Gavin on Terry Gross' "Fresh Air" and bought the book as a result. Gavin deserves much kudos. He presents a well-balanced portrait of Chet Baker, the the best one I've read on him. Gavin clearly demonstrates keen knowledge of the jazz world and his subject. This book could not have been an easy undertaking. Yes, the drug aspect is dealt with in great detail, but how could it not? Unfortunately, it appears music and drugs didn't exist without each other in Baker's life. In one of the more poignant moments of the book, Baker has finished playing one of the most celebrated gigs of his career, only to be found within a week playing on the street to scrounge up a hundred bucks for a fix.

Throughout all this, I don't for one minute believe that Gavin is out to slay his subject by painting a tabloid picture. Unlike many tell-all biographies, Gavin truly cares about Baker. And it shows thorough a deftly crafted chronicle of Baker's wild roller coaster life that shoots to the top then plunges only to go faster and faster. Taking us along through twists and turns, spiraling out of control until a final stretch, that although we know what's coming, we want to read more.

At times Baker's music merit is debated. There is one thing that isn't. That's his legacy to the world of jazz: Over 150 albums; a recording of "My Funny Valentine" that, to this day, all others are compared; and now we have Gavin's remarkable yet very disturbing portrait of the legend.

When I finished reading, I was left with one question. Has Hollywood noticed this book? It should.

I'm a big fan of Baker having read all his previous books. I do appreciate some of the day to day instances that make up our lives (I even laughed a lot while I read them -- the piece on peeing standing up at night is quite funny) and love Baker's writing, but overall I found this a rather trite literary exercise in making small details central. Again, Baker manages to be witty and clever in spots, but as a novel, albeit a short one, this one falls short of his other books. Maybe it was the ranchy plots of Fermata and Vox that made those short novels more interesting than this one? In any case, you'll feel that you're reading Baker's real life thoughts as he lights the fire every morning at roughly 4am and that's less interesting that you might think. On the bright side, it won't take anyone more than an hour or so to read this novella, so you can't get too angry at the author for taking up your valuable time.

Nicholson Baker's A Box of Matches is a novel that has no plot. It's a creative and provocative book that has to do with nothing but also everything. Emmett is a 44-year-old medical textbook editor who has a wife Claire, two children Phoebe and Henry, a cat and a duck Greta. Now Emmett contemplates an interesting idea. Inspired by Claire who took him to see the first emerging blade of sunrise on New Year's day, he decides to get up very early before dawn, when the sky is still a conceivable blue and pitch-dark, strikes a match and lights a fire and meditates before the kicking off of the day.

The book has no plot but hinges on a theme: Emmett wants to know what life is about. Sitting in front of the orange cavern, in a bathrobe, eyes barely lubricated, Emmett thinks. Nothing really compelling about the daily petty anecdotes, the paltry conversations, and the inveterate, perfunctory house chores. What makes the book so compelling is Emmett's fiery zest with which he relays his most ordinary anecdotes.

1.The toe-hole in the sock of his foot becomes intolerable at night.
2.The double-flush plunger with a narrow tip comes in rescue to lunge the bathtub drain and clears the clog.
3.Greta, the duck, makes whimpering noise when she pecks at some snail stuck in the bottom of a log.
4.Absent-minded Emmett loses his key, which is later found frozen under a piece of raw meat in the freezer.
5.Hose winder spares the hands from the mulchy things and snail slime attached to the hose when being winded manually.
6.Emmett prefers a soap that is not brain-shriveling with perfumes but heavy with soap material.
7.His toes learn, by trial and error, to arch and lift up from the tub to avoid the impact of collision when the bar of soap slips out of his hand and drops.
8.The most effective method to clean a baking pan that previously holds a casserole is to let it soak overnight, squirt and trail soap in the baked-on atolls and the suds will give away.
9.The fire should be made by feel, feeding slab of junk mails, supermarket circulars, and pieces of pizza box into the slot made by two logs.
10.In an inquisitive state, one should never turn over a cup and see if the Hollerbee chinaware logo is imprinted, and thus sending a gush of hot tea onto the trousers.
11.Men should sit on the toilet for their business in the middle of the night should they have bad aiming.
12.Be careful with cutting apple woods. They could leap up and whack in your face in a nick of second.

Of course you will have to join Emmett's early-bird ritual and take joy in his life meditation. The book is graciously divided into 33 short chapters and each chapter represents each of the 33 matches from the box Emmett strikes every morning. He always starts off with "Good Morning, it's _:__am" and he would rebuke himself for getting up late in a couple mornings.

The amazing thing about this book is however thorough the observations and wise the subjects Emmett observes, the narrative always confines in his home, in front of the fireplace and moves no further than the backyard where Greta the duck takes residence in a doghouse. This is a celebration of life ordinariness. The writing is daft, thoughtful and crisp. Beautifully written. 4.1 stars.

This creative piece of fiction by Nicholson Baker is really more than just that. Baker's main character, Emmett, runs a parallel, rural life not unlike the authors own. Baker throws all his own feelings about the tiny things around him and their vast impact on his life into his character's daily ritual. It all starts out with the flare of a match. "Good Morning, it's 4:45 a.m."

If you think an ordinary man with an ordinary life has nothing to say at four o'clock in the morning, you couldn't be more off-base. While sitting in the dark and sipping hot coffee, Emmett explores everything from the nuisance of having a hole in his bedtime sock, to the perplexity of life "passing him by". The beauty of this book is that Baker takes these thoughts and pushes them one step further, bringing the eating habits of a pet duck or a root beer-stained brief case full circle. This kind of writing always bring validation to our normal lives.

"I've just ridden my tricycle, gone to school, greased my bearings, gotten a job, gotten married, had children, and here I am."

Each chapter starts out with Emmett's familiar greeting, a quick, usually comical, quibble of his morning run-down, and then a thoughtful stream of whatever is on the top of his mind. Whether he reminisces about his youth or contemplates the lives of chimney sweeps, he wraps each section up in a pointedly keen observation about the meaning of these things in life.

While this book is categorized as a 'novel' I find it really hard to thing of in such a way. If it weren't for the fictional name of the character I would've just assumed this was a personal memoir. Also, besides the message that the everyday coming's and going's of our lives make up who we are, I felt this book didn't carry a very strong theme. I fully believe in Bakers underlying philosophy, but was hoping that there would be some kind of a story line to tie all these vignettes together (there were a couple of chapters where Emmett battles an illness that I thought would lead to something, but it never did). Even so, there's so much to enjoy in this book. Anyone who's raised a family, gotten married, or lived an 'ordinary' life would thoroughly enjoy reading this.