The Harvard Square Book Circle

The Harvard Square Book Circle, our in-store book club, will discuss Nicholson Baker's novel The Anthologist, in honor of National Poetry Month.

Although a novel is no substitute for poetry, Nicholson Baker's novel, which follows a poet as he procrastinates the writing of an introduction to an anthology of rhyming poetry, is the perfect way to start a conversation about poetry and to explore directions for future reading.

"Somehow Nicholson Baker has written a novel about poetry that’s actually about poetry—and that is also startlingly perceptive and ardent, both as a work of fiction and as a representation of the kind of thinking that poetry readers do. The Anthologist is the story of Paul Chowder, a semi-successful, middle-aged American poet trying and mostly failing to write the introduction to an anthology called Only Rhyme. As in most Baker novels, not much happens. Chowder sits in his workplace/barn and thinks; he shampoos the dog; he goes blueberry picking; he installs flooring for a neighbor; he pines for his former girlfriend Roz, who left him after getting fed up with his procrastination; he acquires a couple of finger injuries; he gives a reading; and finally, he sits on a panel on rhyme in Switzerland, at which he...well, again, it’s a Baker denouement, so not much happens, at least in terms of gunfights or ninjas. Mostly what Chowder does is talk about poetry. And then talk some more. And then, you know, a little more. This wouldn’t be an exciting prospect—it would, in fact, be a dreadful prospect—except that Chowder is possibly the most appealing narrator Baker has invented."
—The New York Times

"If you want supple, lightly ironized, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny prose from a hapless fictional poet, a gentle satire of books about how to read poetry, and a short, sneaky introduction to poetry that conveys real information despite its fictional disguise, this book will be a delight." —The San Francisco Chronicle