Lowell, Massachusetts
Lowell () is a city in Massachusetts, United States. Alongside Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge, it is one of two traditional county seat, seats of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Middlesex County. With an estimated population of 115,554 in ...
) is an American author who writes and lectures about authors, books, and book culture. His subjects include the "eternal passion for books" ('' A Gentle Madness''); the history and future of libraries (''Patience & Fortitude''); the "willful destruction of books" and the "determined effort to rescue them" (''A Splendor of Letters''); "the power of the printed word to stir the world" (''Every Book Its Reader''); the invention of paper and its effect on civilization (''On Paper: The Everything of Its Two-Thousand-Year History''),Martin A. Hubbe,"On Paper - A Celebration of Two Millennia of the Work and Craft of Papermakers", ''BioResources'', 8(4), 4791-4792, November 201 /ref> and an exploration of Longfellow's life and art (''Cross of Snow: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow'').
Bates College
Bates College () is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Lewiston, Maine. Anchored by the Historic Quad, the campus of Bates totals with a small urban campus which includes 33 Victorian ...
in
Lewiston, Maine
Lewiston (; ) is the List of municipalities in Maine, second most populous city in the U.S. state of Maine, with the city's population at 37,121 as of the 2020 United States census. The city lies halfway between Augusta, Maine, Augusta, the sta ...
in 1965. Following a year of graduate study at
Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsyl ...
, he did research for his master's thesis in
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
then entered U. S. Navy
Officer Candidate School
An officer candidate school (OCS) is a military school which trains civilians and Enlisted rank, enlisted personnel in order for them to gain a Commission (document), commission as Commissioned officer, officers in the armed forces of a country. H ...
in
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is a seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Rhode Island, United States. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, and nort ...
. He attended the Defense Information School in the spring of 1968 and earned his master's degree in journalism in 1969 while serving aboard the aircraft carrier during the first of two combat deployments he made to
Yankee Station
Yankee Station (officially Point Yankee) was a fixed coordinate off the coast of Vietnam where U.S. Navy aircraft carriers and support ships operated in open waters over a nine-year period during the Vietnam War. The location was used primari ...
in the
Gulf of Tonkin
The Gulf of Tonkin is a gulf at the northwestern portion of the South China Sea, located off the coasts of Tonkin ( northern Vietnam) and South China. It has a total surface area of . It is defined in the west and northwest by the northern co ...
Discharged from active duty in 1971, Basbanes went to work as a general assignment reporter for ''The Evening Gazette'' in
Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Massachusetts, second-most populous city in the U.S. state of Massachusetts and the list of United States cities by population, 113th most populous city in the United States. Named after Worcester ...
, specializing in investigative journalism. In 1978, he was appointed books editor of a sister publication, the Worcester ''Sunday Telegram'', a full-time position that included writing a weekly column.
Due to cost cutting measures, the ''Telegram'', then known as the ''
Telegram & Gazette
The ''Telegram & Gazette'' (and ''Sunday Telegram'') is the only daily newspaper of Worcester, Massachusetts. The paper, headquartered at 100 Front Street and known locally as ''the Telegram'' or the ''T & G'', offers coverage of all of Worceste ...
,'' removed its book section in 1990. When Basbanes left the newspaper later in 1991 to complete his first book, he continued writing the column and distributed it through Literary Features Syndicate, an agency he formed that placed it in more than thirty publications nationwide. He writes the "Gently Mad" column for ''Fine Books & Collections'' magazine and lectures on book-related subjects.
Books
Basbanes' first book, '' A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books'', was published in 1995. The topic was originally dismissed as too arcane for a general readership by many New York editors who had passed on the opportunity to publish it, but the book later found sizable success with multiple printings.
Michael Dirda
Michael Dirda (born 1948) is an American book critic, working for the '' Washington Post''. He has been a Fulbright Fellow and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1993.
Career
Having studied at Oberlin College for his undergraduate degree in 1970, Dirda ea ...
of ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
'' called it an "ingratiating and altogether enjoyable book", praising the book's "wonderful gallery of modern eccentrics" despite its occasional lapses in literary history. ''A Gentle Madness'' was named a ''New York Times'' notable book of the year and was a finalist for the
National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English". The eight-year project, which was released in October 2013, was supported in part by the award of a
National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...
Research Fellowship in 2008. It was named a notable book by the American Library Association, and was one of three finalists for the 2014
Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
__NOTOC__
The Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction were established in 2012 to recognize the best fiction and nonfiction books for adult readers published in the U.S. in the previous year. They are named in honor of ni ...
.
In July 2015, Basbanes received one of the inaugural grants from the Public Scholar program of the National Endowment for the Humanities in support of his tenth book, ''Cross of Snow: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow'', published in 2020. The Public Scholar program is designed to promote the publication of scholarly nonfiction books for general audiences. ''Cross of Snow'' was named one of the best nonfiction books of 2020 by the ''Christian Science Monitor'', one of the Books of the Year 2020 by ''TLS'' and was selected as an Honors Book in the non-fiction category by the Massachusetts Center for the Book.
Litigation
On January 5, 2024, Basbanes and Nicholas Gage, nonfiction book author and journalist, sued Microsoft and OpenAI in a proposed class action complaint filed in the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The lawsuit alleges that the defendants “stole” writers’ copyrighted works to help build AI chatbot ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence system they say is worth billions of dollars. The class is defined as all nonfiction writers in the United States, many of them trained as journalists, “who are authors or legal beneficial owners” of copyrights that have or are being used by the defendants to “train their large language models” and it estimates the class to include tens of thousands of people. It seeks damages of up to $150,000 for each work infringed. This lawsuit follows several other suits and letters of complaint filed alleging copyright infringement not only by these defendants, but also by Meta Platforms, Alphabet and IBM. These suits by authors and performers, and actions by The Authors Guild, The Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild are seeking protection for creators over AI use.
Considered too similar to lawsuits filed late last year, this January complaint has been consolidated into a case brought by other nonfiction writers as well as fiction writers represented by the Authors Guild.
Open AI issue a statement "We respect the rights of content creators and owners and are committed to working with them to ensure they benefit from AI technology and new revenue models."
Texas A&M University
Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, TA&M, or TAMU) is a public university, public, Land-grant university, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas, United States. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of ...
acquired Basbanes' papers as the Nicholas A. Basbanes Collection in December 2015. The collection includes archives of Basbanes' professional career as an author and literary journalist, as well as a significant portion of his personal library. Highlights of the collection include research materials related to the writing of his nine books and approximately eight hundred books inscribed to him over the course of his career.
Two selections of his literary journalism were collected in ''Editions & Impressions'' (2007) and ''About the Author'' (2010).
His collection of books resides in
North Grafton, Massachusetts
Grafton is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 19,664 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The town consists of the North Grafton, Grafton, and South Grafton geog ...
.
Bibliography
*'' A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books'', New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1995. (); Durham, NC: Fine Books Press, 2012 (updated print edition, and first electronic edition) ()
*''Patience & Fortitude: A Roving Chronicle of Book People, Book Places, and Book Culture'', New York: HarperCollins, 2001 (
*''Among the Gently Mad: Perspectives and Strategies for the Book-Hunter in the 21st Century'', New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2002 (
*''A Splendor of Letters: The Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World'', New York: HarperCollins, 2003 ()
*''Every Book its Reader: The Power of the Printed Word to Stir the World'', New York: HarperCollins, 2005 ()
*''Editions & Impressions: Twenty Years on the Book Beat'', Durham, N.C.: Fine Books Press, 2007 ()
*''A World of Letters: Yale University Press, 1908-2008'', New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008 ()
*''About the Author: Inside the Creative Process'', Durham, NC: Fine Books Press, 2010 ()
*''On Paper: The Everything of Its Two-Thousand-Year History'', New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013 ()
*''Cross of Snow: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow'', New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2020 ()
Works by or about Nicholas Basbanes in libraries (WorldCat Identities)Basbanes profile on -SPAN Library Thing Profile *Pradeep Sebastia "Endpaper: Scroll Down Memory Lane" ''The Hindu'', August 31, 2013
*William A. Davis ''Boston Globe'', June 26, 1996, reprinted ''Bates Magazine'', Spring 1997.
*John Baker, "A Mania for Books", ''Publishers Weekly'', vol. 252, issue 45, November 11, 200 *William F.Meehan III,"First Impression: An Interview with Author and Bibliophile Nicholas A. Basbanes", ''Indiana Libraries'', volume 25, number 3, 200 *Michael M. Jones,"Reamed Out: PW Talks with Nicholas A. Basbanes," ''Publishers Weekly'', August 23, 201 *Bob Minzesheimer,"Five Great Books about Libraries", ''USA Today'', May 8, 201 *Helen Gallagher, "On Paper: The Everything of Its Two-Thousand-Year History," ''New York Journal of Books'', October 15, 201 *Ron Charles, "Nicholas Basbanes on the Enduring Importance of Paper," ''The Washington Post'', The Style Blog, October 28, 2013 *''Imprints and Impressions: Milestones in Human Progress, ''Exhibition of the Rarest Books in the World at the University of Dayton, October 2, 201 *Sohn JiAe, ''Korea.net'', "Hanji Traditional Paper Beloved Around the World," December 22, 2014 *Stephanie McFeeters,''The Boston Globe'', Names, "Local Writers Will Share National Endowment for the Humanities Grant," July 29, 201
*Michael Schaub, ''Los Angeles Times'', Jacket Copy, "Academic Nonfiction for the Masses? NEH Awards $1.7 million in Public Scholar grants," July 29, 201 *Michael S. Rosenwald, ''Washington Post'', Local, "Take note: The Paper Industry is Planning a Big Comeback," July 29, 201 *“Cross of Snow: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,” ''Publishers Weekly'', April 9, 202 *Christoph Irmscher, ''The Wall Street Journal'', Books/Bookshelf, "‘Cross of Snow’ Review: Our Poet of Loneliness," May 22, 2020
*Charles McGrath, ''The New York Times'', Nonfiction, "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: America's No. 1 Literary Celebrity," June 4, 202 *Michael Dirda, ''The Washington Post'', Books Review, "Beloved, patriotic, sentimental: A look at the life and poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow," June 3, 202 *James Marcus, ''The New Yorker'', Books, "What is There to Love About Longfellow?," June 8 & 15, 2020 Issue *Herman Sutter, ''Library Journal'', "Cross of Snow: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow," June 2020 * ''Publishers Weekly'', "Cross of Snow: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow," April 9, 2020 *BBC Sounds, ''Free Thinking'', "Paper: An Exploration of the Cultural and Social History of Paper," January 19, 2022
*Boston Athenaeum, ''Nicholas Basbanes in conversation with Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen about their book "The Library: A Fragile History,"'' January 21, 2022
*Kevin Lind, ''Columbia Journalism Review'', The Media Today, "A Bibliophile Takes on Big AI," August 15, 2024 *U.S. National Park Service, Longfellow House-Washington Headquarters National Historic Site, “The Past and Present here unite… ,” May 2, 202 Introduction to Robert A. Wilson, ''Modern Book Collecting'' a new edition (New York: Skyhorse Publishing Co., 2010)
*Nicholas A. Basbanes,"The ''Evening Star'' and the Bobby Baker Story: A Case Study," Thesis (M.A.), Pennsylvania State Universit