This book was my first of 2012 and it's also outstanding. I've not read much Nicholson Baker. He's an American writer and some of his work (The Mezzanine, U &I) I've enjoyed and some I haven't been tempted to try. This is a very short book indeed but it is so packed with fascinating stuff that I think I'll have to read it again. The story is a simple one: a not-very-successful poet is under pressure to produce the introduction to an anthology of American poets. He is having domestic troubles. He is having doubts about his own abilities. He is awed, infuriated, amazed and entranced by the sheer numbers of poems, and poets he has to consider. Also, he wants to write something about how poetry itself works. The result is quite enchanting. You get a thorough and illuminating account of very many poets and poems and that in itself is marvellous but as well as that, the novel part of the book about Paul, the anthologist and how he fares and what happens to him, day to day, is also interesting, so in effect you are getting two books for the price of one and the whole thing in very few words. It's a marvel of economy and precision and most elegantly written. You end up knowing more at the beginning than you did before you started. It ought to be on the syllabus of every literature course in the country. If you're at all interested in poetry, do read it. Even if you aren't, I think you should give it a go. You'd be amazed to see where Paul finds poetry lurking...A lovely book.