A review by deborahwithanoh
The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker

This is most certainly not the type of book I would usually read, and I found it challenging but also fascinating. It's basically an 135-page-long thought experiment that makes you, in turn, think thoughts and ask yourself questions such as, "What on earth is going through MY head every day? Could it possibly be half as interesting?" And here's the thing -- it could! It was pretty fun seeing an entire book devoted to the kind of commonplace, mundane minutiae that I usually dismiss as undeserving of attention or discussion, and having to reevaluate that. The book is, by design, rooted to its era in the everyday life and technology it describes, and it did depress me a little to read these meditations on all these ingenious mechanisms that are now obsolete in favor of sleek soulless technological minimalism. But alas. At least for the next several days, I'm gonna be looking at everything differently. Great book to read on your commute.