List Books » Collected Prose: Autobiographical Writings, True Stories, Critical Essays, Prefaces, and Collaborations with Artists
Authors: Paul Auster
ISBN-13: 9780312424688, ISBN-10: 031242468X
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Picador
Date Published: March 2005
Edition: (Non-applicable)
Paul Auster's unique novels are often like Chinese boxes, continually opening further to reveal new layers. He approaches his writing as he has approached his life, to an extent: as something of a nomad in a perpetually changing, mysterious landscape.
An essential collection from one of the finest thinkers and stylists in contemporary letters.
The celebrated author of The New York Trilogy, The Book of Illusions, and Oracle Night presents here a highly personal collection of essays, prefaces, true stories, autobiographical writings, and collaborations with artists, as well as occasional pieces written for magazines and newspapers, including The Invention of Solitude his "breathtaking memoir." (Financial Times Magazine London)
Ranging in subject from Sir Walter Raleigh to Kafka, Nathaniel Hawthorne to the high-wire artist Philippe Petit, conceptual artist Sophie Calle to Auster's own typewriter, the World Trade Center catastrophe to his beloved New York City itself, Collected Prose records the passions and insights of a writer who "will be remembered as one of the great writers of our time" (San Francisco Chronicle).
"Auster's Collected Prose provides a fascinating long-exposure snapshot of a writer's private and abiding obsessions and touchstones as he oscillates between the worlds of his life and art."--The Times (London)
"He is a remarkable writer whose work needs to be read in totality."--The Sunday Herald (Scotland)
"One of America's leading novelists...The literary essays and prefaces in this collection are elegant and accessible.... Much of what is offered here displays his warmth, democratic instincts, and human concerns."--The Daily Telegraph (London)
"Auster's informed enthusiasms, especially for European modernism and aspects of the avant-garde, make him a passionate, intelligent, and stimulating commentator. He writes acutely about the dilemmas which inform serious artistic decisions. The hospitable, generous pieces make one want to go immediately to the writers he discusses."--The Observer (London)
Paul Auster is the author of eleven novels, most recently Oracle Night. His previous two novels, The Book of Illusions and Timbuktu, were national bestsellers. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
The invention of solitude | 1 | |
Hand to mouth | 151 | |
The red notebook | 243 | |
Why write? | 265 | |
Accident report | 273 | |
It don't mean a thing | 278 | |
Gotham handbook | 283 | |
The story of my typewriter | 289 | |
Pages for Kafka | 303 | |
The death of Sir Walter Raleigh | 305 | |
Northern lights | 310 | |
The art of hunger | 317 | |
New York babel | 325 | |
Dada bones | 331 | |
Truth, beauty, silence | 337 | |
From cakes to stones | 346 | |
The poetry of exile | 351 | |
Innocence and memory | 360 | |
Book of the dead | 367 | |
Reznikoff x2 | 373 | |
The bartlebooth follies | 389 | |
Jacques Dupin | 395 | |
Andre du Bouchet | 398 | |
Black on white | 400 | |
Twentieth-century French poetry | 403 | |
Mallarme's son | 429 | |
On the high wire | 436 | |
Translator's note | 444 | |
The national story project | 450 | |
A little anthology of surrealist poems | 457 | |
The art of worry | 458 | |
Invisible Joubert | 464 | |
Hawthorne at home | 470 | |
A prayer for Salman Rushdie | 493 | |
Appeal to the governor of Pennsylvania | 495 | |
The best substitute for war | 497 | |
Reflections on a cardboard box | 501 | |
Random notes : September 11 - 2001 - 4:00 PM | 505 | |
Underground | 507 | |
Nyc = Usa | 508 |