What Emmett thinks about is the subject of this wise and closely observed novel, which covers vast distances while moving no further than Emmett's hearth and home. Nicholson Baker's extraordinary ability to describe and celebrate life in all its rich ordinariness has never been so beautifully achieved.
"Wonderful. . . . An opportunity for heightened mindfulness. . . . Baker has made an astonishing specialty of showing just how much is going on in life, and in our heads, when it seems that nothing is." --Walter Kirn, The New York Times Book Review
"Hypnotic. . . . By simply striking a match, Baker has traveled through space and time to set a world on fire." --The Village Voice
"Tender, melancholy . . . As Virginia Woolf did, Baker has genuinely transformed the way fiction can render our experience on the page. There nothing else like A Box of Matches out there." --The Seattle Times