This is actually the slightest of Baker's triad of minimalist stream of consciousness novels, after the great The Mezzanine and good Room Temperature, but I'll give it an extra star because it contains a brilliant theory about bad dreams that I now take to be literally true, which makes returning to sleep (after emptying my tank) a piece of cake, no matter how alarming the dream.
Here's the theory in Baker's words:
"I have a theory of bad dreams which I think is revolutionary. My theory is that they are most often simply the result of the body's need to wake up the mind using only the tools it has available, most often in order to pee. The mind is unconscious, in a near coma, but the body has received reports of a substantial accumulation of hot urine belowdecks. The body is getting insistent calls and memos describing the gravity of the hot urine situation, and passing it up to the low-brain, but the high-brain's phone is unplugged because it is asleep. What is the low-brain to do? It has three options: laughter, arousal, or fear. All three will elevate the heart rate, but laughter and arousal are, especially if the high-brain really wants to keep sleeping for a last ten or fifteen minutes, less dependable. Fear it must be, then..."

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A Box of Matches stands as a brilliant example of the urge to write in the face of the quotidian. But author Nicholson Baker turns mundane activity into deep imaginative realms and far-fetched speculations: an inchoate blaze in a fireplace becomes a far-off corner of a violent universe; a burning Quaker Oats box becomes a coastal British fort. Such are the pathways of Baker’s mind and observations. And they prove once again that it’s not the subject matter that counts in fiction, it’s the way the subject matter is presented. For me, Baker has yet to disappoint. Far from it.

He greets us each morning with the time and sometimes adds an observation about the weather. It’s winter in the Northeast of the U.S., so cold and snow occupy the land and lives. And because cold is a factor, our narrator builds a fire in the fireplace each morning, and he uses a box of strike-anywhere matches during the course of the book. The business of this novel is the minutiae of daily life. But far from boring, Baker leavens his prose with not only thought-provoking observations, but takes journeys out over the town, the landscape, and the history of his area, to destinations philosophic and speculative.

I love Nicholson Baker’s work. He makes startling and original revelations about everyday objects and activities, and in his hands these ordinary things and events take on a mysticism, an inherently more meaningful and illuminative existence. A Box of Matches is no exception, and I urge you to take it up and be charmed with very little investment in time. ( )

I gave Nick "A Bitch in the House", telling him, "This is what women think about." He gave me "A Box of Matches" saying, "This is what men think about." :) It explained a lot. ( )

Like a toned-down, domestic version of Mezzanine. Set off my twee alarm. Still pretty good. ( )

A rather enjoyable narrative of the minutiae of life. It both meant something and didnt all tat the same time. ( )