Nicholas A. Basbanes
Author and book-culture writer
Nicholas A. Basbanes is an American author who writes and lectures about books and book culture. He wrote On Paper, a history of paper spanning two thousand years.
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American Born 1943 in Lowell, United States
About Nicholas A. Basbanes
Nicholas A. Basbanes was born in 1943 in Lowell, Massachusetts, and studied English at Bates College. He served as a naval officer from 1968 to 1971 and holds a master's degree in journalism from Pennsylvania State University. He was literary editor of the Worcester Sunday Telegram. His first book, A Gentle Madness, was a 1995 finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2014, On Paper reached the final three for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. He has also written Cross of Snow, a life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and has contributed the Gently Mad column to Fine Books and Collections Magazine.