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.

His love was like a hurricane Jocko Robinson is the 97th richest man in America and the creator of The Lamplighter, the world-popular TV crime series. But that doesn't stop Jocko from getting shot in the head while looking for a tofu burger in Los Angeles. And that won't stop Jocko from falling helplessly in love with the Hurricane Lady, a former model who calls herself Inertia and serves a crime lord from Cologne. A man in love among a tangle of lovers, Jocko is desperately trying to pry Inertia away from her life of mayhem and promiscuity. To succeed, Jocko has to enter the realm of his own fantasy -- and somehow find a way out again.