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Summary: just BEAUTIFULLLLLLLLLLL
Review: his masterpieces are the mezzanine and room temperature. the master of literary miniature wrote two vulgar sex things- 'vox' and 'fermata' , the first being slightly better. NOW he is back! Here he is in top form!!! This is full of lovely descriptions on minutae as usual, plus it's on waking up early plus on exploring the world in darkness, etc. It is almost existentialist, this beautiful book!!! By the way, please discover the literary forerunner to Bakeriana, 'Voyage Autour Mon Chambre'- I forget the name of its French author- written by a soldier who was confined to his chambers and wrote this most interesting book!
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Summary: If this isn't nice, what is?
Review: I am twenty two. I have my doubts, I have my shortcomings, I have my beautiful moments, I have my personal fantasies and theories. This book shows through subtlety and wit that those are all we need, those things and understanding, I guess. This is not necessarily what I aspire to, it is simply what I believe I will become. I am hopeful that I will not fall short of my dreams, but when I do I know that I will have new ones. This book has made me smile that smile for the two weeks since I read it.
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Summary: Literature of the Quotidian
Review: I had never read anything of Nicholson Baker's before this book, primarily because I remembered reading a review of his earliest book, Mezzanine, in which, as I recall, the whole book takes place in the mind of someone while they're riding an escalator. I thought to myself that, after almost forty years of listening to stream-of-consciousness as a psychiatrist, I didn't need to read it, too. And so Baker was on my To Be Avoided list. But something about this book called out to me and I got it. I'm grateful that I did.The book has no plot - it is simply the thoughts of a middle-aged man moving about his house in the dark very early each morning as he makes a fire and then sits in front of it before anyone else in the family is awake. And since I tend to potter around my house in the dark, very early, thinking my own thoughts, that appealed to me. What I didn't expect was that Baker's character, Emmett - who is, of course, Mr Baker himself - was thinking MY thoughts, or very often so. I had so much 'shock of recognition' here that it was eerie. His character's thoughts are not the neurotic sort made famous - and slightly repellent - by Proust or Joyce. They are the thoughts of a basically normal, healthy middle-aged family man. Beyond that, Baker's ability to notice usually unnoticed and unremarked things, and then describe them not only accurately but in evocative language has now made it necessary for me to go back and read everything he's written. I look forward to it. Scott Morrison
Rating: 
Summary: Safety-Matches
Review: I hate to say it, but it seemed to me that in this novel Nicholson Baker was merely going through the motions....happy to repeat the formula that worked for him in "The Mezzanine", but showing a lot less creativity this time. That's not to say that "A Box Of Matches" is a bad book- it's not. It's enjoyable in a "passing the time" sort of way and you'll get a few chuckles. The book won't stay with you, though. Where "The Mezzanine" had truly remarkable 1-2 page footnotes on things such as straws, staplers and ice cube trays (remarkable for the author's powers of observation as well as for his sense of humor), this new book has sitcom-silly humor concerning things like belly-button lint, vomit and the subtle nuances of a man trying to urinate with accuracy in the middle of the night with no lights on. It's not all like that, but there's enough cheap humor to leave a bad taste in your mouth. We know that Nicholson Baker can do better than this, and I hope he is a bit more thoughtful the next time around and makes a return to top form.
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Summary: Great and Fast Read
Review: I really enjoyed reading A Box of Matches by Nicholas Baker. It was a well written piece. I really enjoyed the way in which he described every detail in the book. I Loved it becasue he engaged me in a way in which it made it sound as if he was talking to me and nobody else. Specially when he started his mornings by saying, Good Morning is 3:48am...and so on. After a while as the times changed it was...Wow, you woke up late today Emmet. Not only that, but he had a whole lot of advice to give to the readers. My favorite part which made me laugh was when he said...If you would like to wake up at five in the morning then you slam your head five times against the pillow then he said..So what do you do when you want to wake up at 5:30? That was hillarious. I really recommend this book to anybody and everybody. I hate reading, I deeply do except when is homework, but this book really caught my attention...I read it in one day. I wish there was another book, the continuation. Once again I recommend the book to all.
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Summary: It would be a RIP-OFF if it were about what others say it is
Review: I struggled greatly with this book, so maddening did I find the narrator, and the parsimonious and strange way he deals out information and dissociates over and over, and its abrupt & apparently meaningless conclusion. In fact, I was trashing it in a book club, venting my spleen about being coyly led around by the author and/or narrator. Then, my own complaints led to the realization of what is going on. I have yet to read ONE SINGLE REVIEW by someone who even spotted the building pattern of information about the narrator that is key to this work. Most of the reviews you will read here and elsewhere make no mention of the fact that this narrator is not very self-aware, and that he gradually unconsciously lets slip information about himself that draws a completely different, but coherent, picture. Once you understand that picture, hopefully you will be led to understand why the novel comes and goes so quickly and insubstantially. I guess most people are so taken with Emmett's minute observations and wandering associations, his self-involved earthiness (be prepared to hear about his belly button lint and his technique for farting silently), to ever wonder what in the hell kind of person he is and how his family puts up with him.... These readers must think, O how cute, how down-to-earth, how minutely observed.... If that's all it is, then you should NOT be paying [money] for it. But I have learned to respect Baker's talent after my own struggle with this book. Hope you do too.
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Summary: Wake up and watch your life
Review: I think the metaphor of "waking up" early and trying to pay attention to life before it passes by unnoticed is wonderful. We have a gifted observer in Baker's narrator who uses 33 mornings to light fires that shed light on the mundane, exposing its magic, and thereby also "warming it up" into something we realize is worthy of appreciation. Such a person as this narrator has a lot to be thankful for, as most upper-middle-class Americans do, feeling their decline at the age of 44, but not going downhill all that quickly yet. "Modern life" is deadening, sometimes maddeningly dull and repetitious, which can drive us to the edge of suicidal despair. But it doesn't have to be, as wonders lurk in every moment, if we just pay attention. Notice that the narrator's suicidal thoughts and nightmares fade over course of these 33 mornings; is it a stretch to say that his growing attentiveness brings him back to life? Some of the reviewers here seem to take pleasure, at least, in how short the book is, and even in what a quick, easy read they found it to be. I don't think that would be the right spirit for getting at this book's main points. Why not savor it slowly, even over the course of 33 days? Like his novel The Mezzanine, this one could open your eyes to intricacies around you, thereby making you more alive. Thanks to that first book, I'll never ride an escalator while thinking about something else again (something other, that is, then the escalator itself, and just what it is that I'm "riding"); thanks to this one, I'll never look at ducks, cats, ants, and for that matter animals and insects, in the same ways again. They do more than just walk when they walk, or eat when they eat; and so do we.
Rating: 
Summary: Can't recommend it
Review: I used to wonder whether or not I was an erudite guy, but after reading all the 4-star reviews for this book, I know now that I definitely am not. What other explanation could account for my findng this book stupefyingly uninteresting? To say that this book did not hold my interest would be a true understatement. Having read and enjoyed two of Baker's prior efforts (U & I and Vox), I took a chance on this one, knowing in advance, as all the reviews have indicated, that there is not even a pretense of a plot in this book. I was hoping that perhaps Baker's writing skills would nevertheless carry the day. Indeed, I can recall at least one movie (My Dinner With Andre) which consisted entirely of a conversation with 2 people and I liked that alot, so I know it can be done on some level. But in this case, no such luck. For all those who liked this book, I guess I can be accused of just not "getting it". It's not that I have anything against ruminations on life, but in this case, Emmett's reflections ranged from the mundane to ... the even more mundane. It is virtually nothing but the quotidian from start to finish. As but a few of dozens of potential examples, we are treated to 3 full pages of Emmett taking coffeemaker parts out of a dishwasher. Then there is the entire chapter on his taking a shower. And of course there are endless paragraphs on the firestarting and fire maintenance process throughout the book. Really riveting stuff. Though the book is short, it wasn't short enough for me, and after finally finishing it, I was curious to see what others thought. To see the largely positive reviews made me feel like I had landed in The Twilight Zone. Either that or, like I said, one just has to be more erudite than I to enjoy this book.
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Summary: same ol', same ol'
Review: I was a big fan of Nicholson Baker's first two books, The Mezzanine and Room Temperature, which were engagingly, amusingly "about nothing" (buying shoelaces, giving a bottle to a baby) years before Seinfeld came along. However, this latest foray into the "nothing" genre is a disappointment. Like the above-mentioned books, this isn't really a "novel,Ó having no plot, and no real characters at all except for our narrator: a balding, bearded, forty-something, New England resident with a wife and two kids that is only too obviously a thin disguise for the author himself. Our authorial stand-in, a textbook editor named Emmett, has decided to get up every morning in the darkness before dawn, light a fire, brew some coffee, and ruminate (in the time-tested Baker manner) on the little things in life: the feeling of soap, what it feels like to scrub a casserole dish, the way a fire looks in the dark, the joy of owning a fine leather briefcase, etc. Except for a brief bout of the flu, nothing happens in terms of plot or character development during the entire course of the book. This is not a problem, as far as IÕm concerned: BakerÕs earliest ÒnovelsÓ were similarly structured as a series of lightly fictionalized mini-essays. But where The Mezzanine and Room Temperature were full of sparkling gems of ephiphanic insightfulness into the micro-miracles of everyday life, in Box of Matches, the author has very little new to add, and, indeed, comes dangerously close to self-parody, at times sounding an Andy Rooney-esque note of pure banality (ÒDid you ever noticeÉÓ). IÕm glad Baker finds his own belly-button lint fascinating, but itÕs a bit of stretch to ask his readers to share his enthusiasm as his narrator rolls it into a cone and watches it burn in his early morning fire. All of Emmett/BakerÕs vignettes about quotidian life are sharply observed, but too many of them are little more than pretty exercises in style that offer little insight into either the narrator or into the human condition in general. ItÕs sad, too, to see such a talented stylist resting so complacently on his earlier laurels. Baker still has his knack for choosing just the perfect word and constructing beautiful similes, but that only makes it all more disturbing to see him treading over the same ground he has tread--and tread with much greater panache--before. No one expects an author whoÕs made his reputation as ÒminiaturistÓ to suddenly up and write the next ÒAnna Karenina,Ó but I hope next time Baker writes a work of fiction he pushes his limits a little more instead of relying on his same old stock-in-trade. In sum, this is probably a book primarily for the authorÕs most devoted fans; others should go back and check out The Mezzanine.
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Summary: Bellybutton lint
Review: I was intrigued by the idea of a book about the minutae and contemplations of a man building a fire in the fireplace before dawn each morning. However, I was disappointed by all the fluff, like the bellybutton lint he discusses, and lack of substance. He mentions his son, his daughter, and his wife, as well as his pet duck, but despite a few personal anecdotes, they remain strangers thoughout the book. I was never able to feel like I was in the man's head, vicariously enjoying his musings. Great concept for a book, poor execution, I'm afraid to say. The short chapters made for ideal subway reading. :-)
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