Kevin Baker (born 1958) is an American novelist, historian, political commentator, and journalist.
Early life Baker was born in Englewood, New Jersey,"Kevin (Breen) Baker." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Retrieved via Biography in Context database 2016-06-19. and grew up in Rockport, Massachusetts.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."Kevin Baker – About." Kevin Baker [author's website]. kevinbaker.info. Retrieved 2016-06-19. As a youth, he worked on the local newspaper Gloucester Daily Times, covering high school sports, as well as town meetings and other civic affairs. He graduated from Columbia University in 1980, with a major in political science.
Career In 1993, Baker's first book, Sometimes You See it Coming (1993), a contemporary baseball novel loosely based on the life of Ty Cobb, was published.
He was the chief historical researcher on Harold Evans’s illustrated history of the United States, The American Century (1998).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." He was a columnist ("In the News") for American Heritage magazine from 1998 to 2007. In 2009 appeared on C-SPAN's Washington Journal and The Colbert Report, to discuss the Obama presidency."Book Discussion on Barack Hoover Obama" (June 21, 2009). C-SPAN. www.c-span.org. Retrieved 2016-06-19.
Baker is the author of the City of Fire trilogy, published by HarperCollins, which consists of the following historical novels: Dreamland (1999); 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"James Fenimore Cooper Prize." Society of American Historians. Retrieved 2016-06-19. and the 2003 American Book Award."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. Paradise Alley was also chosen by bestselling Angela's Ashes author, Frank McCourt, as a Today show book club selection.
In 2009, he wrote Luna Park, a graphic novel illustrated by Croatian artist Danijel Žeželj.Kois, Dan (January 13, 2010). "Book World reviews the graphic novel 'Luna Park' by Kevin Baker" [book review]. Washington Post.
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 Harper's Magazine"Kevin (Breen) Baker." The Writers Directory. Detroit: St. James Press, 2016. Retrieved via Biography in Context database 2016-06-19. and a regular contributor to The New York Times and The New York Times Book Review.
Bibliography The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City (2024) The Fall of a Great American City: New York and the Urban Crisis of Affluence (2019) 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 tTnkerers changed the world (2016)
References
Further reading Kevin Baker's Personal Website