Peter C. Baker

Reading, Reading, Reading

“My gold standard for a novel is whether it’s doing something that only a novel can do, or that a novel can do best.”

Staying Alive

Marlen Haushofer’s The Wall is a gripping drama of survival that plays with the conventions of the “last man” genre.

Death Drives

Pedestrian fatalities are rising dramatically in the US, and Angie Schmitt’s Right of Way gives a rare look at why and what might be done about it.

The Bloodhound

A distinct thread of anger runs through all of Nicholson Baker’s work: anger at what people with power get up to in the shadows, anger at how they lie about it, anger at how we forget.

A Legacy of Torture in Chicago

Laurence Ralph’s ‘The Torture Letters: Reckoning with Police Violence’