Presents three short novels of mystery and suspense that combine elements of standard detective fiction and postmodern fiction

Presents three short novels of mystery and suspense that combine elements of standard detective fiction and postmodern fiction

'It was the summer that men first walked on the moon. I was very young back then, but did not believe there would ever be a future. I wanted to live dangerously, to push myself as far as I could go, and then see what happened when I got there.' So begins the mesmerising narrative of Marco Stanley Fogg - orphan, child of the 1960s, a quester by nature. Moon Palace is his story - a novel that spans three generations, from the early years of this century to the first lunar landings, and moves from the canyons of Manhattan to the cruelly beautiful landscape of the American West. Filled with suspense, unlikely coincidences, wrenching tragedies and marvellous flights of lyricism and erudition, the novel carries the reader effortlessly along with Marco's search - for love, for his unknown father, and for the key to the elusive riddle of his origins and his fate.

Now, for the first time, all three books have been adapted for this landmark graphic novel, each by a different artist, and all overseen by Paul Auster before his death.In David Mazzuchelli's take on City of Glass, a writer of detective fiction is drawn into a real-life case far stranger than anything he has ever written;[Bokinfo]

Leviathan begins when a woman finds an address book and steals a new identity. Or it begins with a sudden, violent death. Or it begins as Peter Aaron sits down to tell the story of his best friend, Benjamin Sachs - to take us, through a life, to the road in rural Wisconsin where Sachs has accidentally blown himself up. Aaron's sole aim is to tell the truth and preserve it, before those who are investigating the case invent a story of their own. Aaron's clues are the small mysteries of any lifetime. Sachs had a marriage Aaron envied, an intelligence he admired, a circle of friends he shared. And then suddenly, after a near-fatal fall that might or might not have been intentional, Sachs disappears. For a while, Aaron's only link to him is through Maria Turner, an artist, and the one witness to Sachs's balcony plunge. Periodically, Sachs reappears, talks manically, and vanishes again - in pursuit of mercy or salvation, in thrall to an idea. Since the first book in his brilliant and acclaimed "New York Trilogy," Paul Auster's "rare combination of talent, scope, and audacity" (The New Republic) has given us worlds in which chance and destiny collide, in which solitary protagonists take us on mysterious, soul-wrenching journeys unparalleled in contemporary fiction. His seventh novel is about friendship and betrayal, sexual desire and estrangement, and the unpredictable intrusions of violence in the everyday. Rooted in American mythology and archetype, Leviathan is both timeless and resolutely about this moment. It is a daring and immensely moving story by "one of America's most spectacularly inventive writers" (The Times Literary Supplement).

"Paul Auster's greatest, most heartbreaking and satisfying novel -- a sweeping and surprising story of birthright and possibility, of love and of life itself: a masterpiece. Nearly two weeks early, on March 3, 1947, in the maternity ward of Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, Archibald Isaac Ferguson, the one and only child of Rose and Stanley Ferguson, is born. From that single beginning, Ferguson's life will take four simultaneous and independent fictional paths. Four identical Fergusons made of the same DNA, four boys who are the same boy, go on to lead four parallel and entirely different lives. Family fortunes diverge. Athletic skills and sex lives and friendships and intellectual passions contrast. Each Ferguson falls under the spell of the magnificent Amy Schneiderman, yet each Amy and each Ferguson have a relationship like no other. Meanwhile, readers will take in each Ferguson's pleasures and ache from each Ferguson's pains, as the mortal plot of each Ferguson's life rushes on. As inventive and dexterously constructed as anything Paul Auster has ever written, yet with a passion for realism and a great tenderness and fierce attachment to history and to life itself that readers have never seen from Auster before. 4 3 2 1 is a marvelous and unforgettably affecting tour de force."--

From New York Times bestselling author Paul Auster, a dystopian, post-apocalyptic novel “reminiscent in many ways of Orwell’s 1984 ” ( The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ). “Powerful, original, imaginative, and handled with artistry . . . One of the better modern attempts at describing hell.”— The Washington Post Book World In a distant and unsettling future, the masses are homeless, theft is so rampant it is no longer a crime, and death—by arranging either a suicide or an assassination—is the only way out. It is in these circumstances that Anna Blume begins her search for her brother, a one-time journalist who may or may not still be alive, in an unnamed city whose destitute inhabitants dig through garbage and elusive government provides nothing but corruption. In her struggle to survive, Anna becomes a scavenger of objects from the past to sell for food and shelter. But she will also find friendship—and even love—in this devastated world. In the Country of Last Things is a tour de force that reaffirms Paul Auster’s stature as one of the most accomplished and singular talents of his generation.

Auster's tale of family dynamics past and present from the author of contemporary classic The New York Trilogy : 'a literary voice for the ages' ( Guardian ) 'I was looking for a quiet place to die. Someone recommended Brooklyn, and so the next morning I travelled down there from Westchester to scope out the terrain . . .' So begins Paul Auster's remarkable novel, The Brooklyn Follies . Set against the backdrop of the contested US election of 2000, it tells the story of Nathan and Tom, an uncle and nephew double-act. One in remission from lung cancer, divorced, and estranged from his only daughter, the other hiding away from his once-promising academic career, and, indeed, from life in general. Having accidentally ended up in the same Brooklyn neighbourhood, they discover a community teeming with life and passion. When Lucy, a little girl who refuses to speak, comes into their lives, there is suddenly a bridge from their pasts that offers them the possibility of redemption. Infused with character, mystery and humour, these lives intertwine and become bound together as Auster brilliantly explores the wider terrain of contemporary America - a crucible of broken dreams and of human folly.

The Red Notebook stories, pulled from Auster's own life or from the lives of those close to him, are explorations of unexpected coincidences. A wrong number becomes the genesis for a famous novel; a hero appears at an inopportune moment; a lightning storm harries a group of campers; a daughter plunges from a terrifying height only to land improbably safely; a Paul Auster imposter materializes. Like a magic show, The Red Notebook demonstrates that "there is much to life that is special and serendipitous -- if only we allow ourselves to perceive it this way" (The Washington Post).

"Day/Night brings together two metaphysical novels that mirror each other and are meant to be read in tandem: two men, each confined to a room, one suddenly alert to his existence, the other desperate to escape into sleep. In Travels in the Scriptorium (2007), elderly Mr. Blank wakes in an unfamiliar cell, with no memory of who he is or how he got there. He must use the few objects he finds and the information imparted by the day's string of visitors to cobble together an idea of his identity. In Man in the Dark (2008), another old man, August Brill, suffering from insomnia, struggles to push away thoughts of painful personal losses by imagining what might have been. Who are we? What is real and not real? How does the political intersect with the personal? After great loss, why are some of us unable to go on? "One of America's greats"* and a descendant of Kafka and Borges,** Auster explores in these two small masterpieces some of our most pressing philosophical concerns. *Time Out Chicago/**Booklist"--

"In this updated collection of literary essays, interviews, prefaces, personal notes, and occasional writings, including poignant and illuminating appreciations of other poets and novelists and of New York City life, Paul Auster offers not only samplings but insights into the first fifty years of his brilliant writing career. Through critical readings of literary greats such as Hawthorne, Poe, Beckett and Kafka, as well as less well-appreciated poets from George Oppen to Laura Riding, Auster celebrates the achievements of his fellow authors while probing the constraints of language and considering the relationships between writers and the works they create. In addition, through an offering of highly personal notes, essays, and interviews dating back to his student days at Columbia in the 1960s, Auster turns the light on himself, exposing readers to the myriad of topics and inspirations that have shaped his work. From sitting in the bleachers at a Mets game to discussing the Dada art movement, from witnessing the death-defying performances of high-wire artist Philippe Petit to reflecting on the events of September 11th, Auster ushers readers into his thinking across fifty years and through a wide-reaching literary world. Sprawling in scope and subject, local in outlook, Talking to Strangers paints a vivid and intimate portrait of the man behind the page who has long captivated readers around the world"