John Baker’s Blog

The view over Sun Valley from Ernest Hemingway’s house in Ketchum, Idaho. This is the house in which the writer ended his life in 1961.
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1. Why do you blog?
Because I want to be immortal. Maybe in the waning years of my life I would want to indulge in my thoughts and preoccupations over those hidden periods in my life. It’s like a diary, but a diary that I can open any time, anywhere and read.
2. Which author and/or book [...]

Ernest Hemingway called Mark Twain’s book: The beginning of modern American literature.
All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn . . . But it’s the best book we’ve had. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.
Norman Mailer: The [...]

That feeling. It’s when a particularly long piece, like a novel, is finally in the bag. You know you’ve finished it. It’s over. It was your life for the last so many months, maybe years. And now it’s gone. It’s out in the world on its own little feet.
While you were involved with it lots [...]