"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."--

"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"