This is an auction for THE FERMATA by Nicholson Baker.

"X-rated sci-fi fantasy that leaves Vox seeming more like mere fiber-optic foreplay."

• Seattle Times

"Baker can be very funny and that, perverse or not, he certainly knows how to write."

• Booklist (US)

"Sparkling."

• San Francisco Chronicle

"Witty, dry and thought-provoking, a great addition to Baker's unique observatory of contemporary life."

• Vogue

Amazon.com review:

"The Fermata is the most risky of Nicholson Baker's emotional histories. His narrator, Arno Strine, is a 35-year-old office temp who is writing his autobiography. "It's harder than I thought!" he admits. His "Fold-powers" are easier; he can stop the world and use it as his own pleasure ground. Arno uses this gift not for evil or material gain (he would feel guilty about stealing), though he does undress a good number of women and momentarily place them in compromising positions--always, in his view, with respect and love. Anyone who can stop time and refer in self-delight to his "chronanisms" can't be all bad! Like Baker's other books, The Fermata gains little from synopsis. The pleasure is literally in the text. What's memorable is less the sex and the sex toys (including the "Monasticon," in the shape of a monk holding a vibrating manuscript) than Arno's wistful recollections of intimacy: the noise, for instance, of his ex-girlfriend's nail clipper, "which I listened to in bed as some listen to real birdsong."

More very favourable reviews on Amazon.com.

Paperback 1994.

303 pages.

Good condition.

The cost of shipping is $4.95.

There is of course no charge for shipping if you collect this book from my shop in Palmerston North following the auction.

Payment within seven days, please.