Books by Paul Auster
“This is not representative of any of the other detective novels that I’ve talked about. It’s a postmodern collection of novellas by Paul Auster, which focus on the whole idea of mystery and detection, identity and madness. It’s very, very interesting. In the first, a writer gets a phone call from someone trying to call a detective. He takes on the job to follow someone, and as he follows this person through the city, he ends up losing himself completely. The second one is quite similar, in that you have a detective hired to follow someone over years. At some point he realises this person is also observing him—and, again, it dissolves into madness. The third falls along similar line, but for someone like me, who has read a lot of detective fiction, it’s a lot of fun to read something so different.” Read more...
The Best 20th-Century American Detective Novels
Dave Zeltserman, Novelist
Bloodbath Nation
by Paul Auster
Bloodbath Nation memorializes the empty sites of several dozen mass shootings in the United States. The text is by American novelist Paul Auster and the photos, in black and white, by Spencer Ostrander, a photographer based in New York. Many countries have introduced strict gun laws to prevent mass shootings; the US has not, in principle because of the Second Amendment of US Constitution. The amendment states that "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Burning Boy: The Life and Work of Stephen Crane
by Paul Auster
✩ Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award for biography
An award-winning biography of the author of The Red Badge of Courage, written by the celebrated novelist Paul Auster. Crane published prolifically during his short life, including poetry, fiction and war reportage, before his death at 28 from tuberculosis. The New Yorker described Burning Boy as "a labor of love of a rare kind in contemporary letters."
Interviews where books by Paul Auster were recommended
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1
All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler
by Rebecca Donner -
2
The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III
by Andrew Roberts -
3
Burning Boy: The Life and Work of Stephen Crane
by Paul Auster -
4
The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World
by Jonathan Freedland -
5
Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne
by Katherine Rundell -
6
Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist's Memoir of the Jim Crow South
by Winfred Rembert
Award Winning Biographies of 2022, recommended by Sophie Roell
Award Winning Biographies of 2022, recommended by Sophie Roell
In telling stories of lives that are often very different from our own and yet connected to us by our common humanity, biographies are some of the most compelling nonfiction books around. Five Books editor Sophie Roell rounds up some of the biographies that have won or been shortlisted for prizes in 2022.
The Best 20th-Century American Detective Novels, recommended by Dave Zeltserman
Many well-loved American detective novels feature cynical private investigator protagonists facing down hardened criminals and deep-set corruption. We asked Dave Zeltserman, author of Small Crimes, to recommend five brilliant books from this popular genre, from a 1920s small town murder mystery to a 1980s postmodern trilogy.
