New review: A real-world thriller of hubris, pandemics, and biological weapons, Air-Borne brilliantly tells the complex and multifaceted history of aerobiology.
Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act by Nicholson Baker, 2020
A major new work, a hybrid of history, journalism, and memoir, about the modern Freedom of Information Act – FOIA – and the horrifying, decades-old government misdeeds that it is unable to demystify, from one of America's most celebrated writers.
Ten years into researching a book about the possibility that the United States had used biological weapons in the Korean War, Nicholson Baker was frustrated and disheartened. In the course of his research, he had become deeply disillusioned with the process of FOIA requests. He has been forced to wait years in some cases, while other requests have been answered only with documents rendered inscrutable, or even illegible, by copious redactions. Rather than wait forever, with his head full of secrets about government atrocities committed by his own country, Baker sets out to keep a personal journal of his obstructed research instead. He begins documenting his correspondence with the government.