Nicholas A. Basbanes is the author of ten critically acclaimed works of cultural history, with a particular emphasis on various aspects of books and book culture. A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books, his first book, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction in 1995, and was a New York Times Notable Book. On Paper: The Everything of Its Two Thousand Year History (2013, Knopf) was a finalist for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, and was named a best book of the year by seven major publications. His most recent book, Cross of Snow: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Knopf,2020), received top honors in nonfiction from the Massachusetts Center for the Book, an affiliate of the Library of Congress, for the Massachusetts Book Award. In 2016, he was awarded a Public Scholar research fellowship by the National Endowment for the Humanities, his second NEH grant