"The Mezzanine" by Nicholson Baker

Nicholson Baker takes a place among our most meticulous observers of anyone currently producing fiction. By meticulous, I mean not only minutely close, but microscopically close. Baker engenders a sense of wonder as he praises the absolutely mundane from his vantage in a modern office. He compares a stapler and a row of staples to a railroad, and it's an image that stays with me to this day (I read this book about five years ago). His description and assessment of shoe laces raises that quotidian item to the miraculous.

The story takes us out to lunch and a very, very close (again) consideration of typical takeout lunch, outdoor benches near downtown buildings, the architectural spaces in office building entryways ... I can't recall everything, but nothing is taken up that shouldn't be.

I enjoyed this book so much that I immediately took up (and thoroughly enjoyed) "Vox," a book-length phone sex conversation (talk about a dated piece!)

Nicholson Baker is an intriguing practitioner, well worth the acquaintance.