Minor objects and ordinary habits become large enough to sustain entire books in Nicholson Baker’s fiction and nonfiction. The Mezzanine follows a man during a lunch-hour escalator ride while footnotes expand into thoughts about shoelaces, straws, office routines and memory. Room Temperature similarly stretches a father’s thoughts while he feeds his baby, while Vox builds an erotic novel almost entirely from a telephone conversation. Baker’s nonfiction ranges from libraries and newspaper preservation in Double Fold to pacifism and the Second World War in Human Smoke. His prose is meticulous, digressive and comic, rewarding attention to detail rather than plot momentum. For discovery, the work connects most naturally with experimental fiction, literary essays, metafiction and books about everyday observation. Read more Less
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