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Kevin Baker (author)

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For the hockey player, see Kevin Baker (hockey).
Kevin Baker
Baker in 2015
Baker in 2015
Born1958 (age 65–66)[1]
Englewood, New Jersey, U.S.
OccupationNovelist, historian, journalist, political commentator
GenreRealistic fiction, historical fiction, Nonfiction
Website
kevinbaker.info

Kevin Baker (born 1958) is an American novelist, political commentator, and journalist.

Early life

Baker was born in Englewood, New Jersey,[1] and grew up in Rockport, Massachusetts.[2][3] As a youth, he worked on the local newspaper Gloucester Daily Times,[1] covering school-boy sports, as well as town meetings and other civic affairs. He graduated from Columbia University in 1980,[1] with a major in political science.[2]

Career

In 1993, Baker's first book, Sometimes You See it Coming (1993),[1] a contemporary baseball novel loosely based on the life of Ty Cobb, was published.[2]

He was the chief historical researcher on Harold Evans’s illustrated history of the United States, The American Century (1998).[4] He was a columnist ("In the News") for American Heritage magazine from 1998 to 2007.[5] In 2009 appeared on C-SPAN's Washington Journal and The Colbert Report, to discuss the Obama presidency.[6]

Baker is the author of the City of Fire trilogy, published by HarperCollins, which consists of the following historical novels: Dreamland (1998); the bestselling Paradise Alley (2002); and Strivers Row (2006). The middle volume of the trilogy won the 2003 James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction[7] and the 2003 American Book Award.[8] Paradise Alley was also chosen by bestselling Angela's Ashes author, Frank McCourt, as a Today show book club selection.

In 2009, he wrote a Luna Park, a graphic novel illustrated by Croatian artist Danijel Žeželj.[9]

A writer of over 200 newspaper and magazine articles, Baker was the recipient of a 2017 Guggenheim fellowship for non-fiction.

Baker lives in New York City, where he is a contributing editor to and bi-monthly columnist for Harper's Magazine[5], and a regular contributor to Politico.com, The New Republic, The New York Times, and The New York Times Book Review.

Bibliography

  • Sometimes You See It Coming (1993)
  • The American Century (1998; with Harold Evans and Gail Buckland)
  • Dreamland (1999)
  • Paradise Alley (2002)
  • “Rudy Giuliani and the Myth of Modern New York” (2005; in America's Mayor: The Hidden History of Giuliani's New York)
  • “Lost-Found Nation: The Last Meeting Between Elijah Muhammad and W.D. Fard (2006; in I Wish I'd Been There)
  • Strivers Row (2006)
  • Luna Park (2011; with artist Danijel Žeželj)
  • The Big Crowd (2013)
  • Becoming Mr. October (2014)
  • America The Ingenious: How a nation of dreamers, immigrants, and tinkerers changed the world (2016)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "Kevin (Breen) Baker." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Retrieved via Biography in Context database 2016-06-19.
  2. ^ a b c Shafner, Rhonda (December 29, 2002). "At Home with History: Books Have Long Taken Writer Kevin Baker into the Past." Reading Eagle (Reading, Pa.). Retrieved via Google News 2016-06-19.
  3. ^ "Kevin Baker – About." Kevin Baker [author's website]. kevinbaker.info. Retrieved 2016-06-19.
  4. ^ Reynolds, David S. (October 11, 1998). "The March of Time: The American Century by Harold Evans with Gail Buckland and Kevin Baker" [book review]. New York Times. "... with the help of a research team headed by Kevin Baker, [Evans] has culled a staggering amount of information from other history books."
  5. ^ a b "Kevin (Breen) Baker." The Writers Directory. Detroit: St. James Press, 2016. Retrieved via Biography in Context database 2016-06-19.
  6. ^ "Book Discussion on Barack Hoover Obama" (June 21, 2009). C-SPAN. www.c-span.org. Retrieved 2016-06-19.
  7. ^ "James Fenimore Cooper Prize." Society of American Historians. Retrieved 2016-06-19.
  8. ^ "Before Columbus Foundation Presents the American Book Awards 2003" [press release]. Before Columbus Foundation. Available as PDF file on the foundation's website (www.beforecolumbusfoundation.com). Retrieved 2016-06-19.
  9. ^ Kois, Dan (January 13, 2010). "Book World reviews the graphic novel 'Luna Park' by Kevin Baker" [book review]. Washington Post.

Further reading

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