Talking to strangers : selected essays, prefaces, and other writings, 1967-2017 / Paul Auster.
Material type:
TextPublisher: New York : Picador, Henry Holt and Company, 2019Edition: First editionDescription: viii, 390 pages : illustrations ; 21 cmISBN: - 9781250206299 :
- 1250206294
| Item type | Current library | Collection | Shelving location | Call number | Status | Notes | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adult Book | Phillipsburg Free Public Library | Adult Non-Fiction | Adult Non-Fiction | 813.54 AUS | Available | pap.ed. | 36748002440545 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
Talking to Strangers is a freshly curated collection of prose, spanning fifty years of work and including famous as well as never-before-published early writings, from Man Booker Prize-finalist Paul Auster.
Beginning with a short philosophical meditation written when he was twenty and concluding with nine political pieces that take on such issues as homelessness, 9/11, and the link between soccer and war, the 44 pieces gathered in this volume offer a wide-ranging view of celebrated novelist Paul Auster's thoughts on a multitude of classic and contemporary writers, the high-wire exploits of Philippe Petit, how to improve life in New York City (in collaboration with visual artist Sophie Calle), and the long road he has traveled with his beloved manual typewriter.
While writing for the New York Review of Books and other publications in the mid-1970s, young poet Auster gained recognition as an astute literary critic with essays on Laura Riding, John Ashbery, Samuel Beckett, Franz Kafka, Paul Celan, and others. By the late seventies and early eighties, as the poet was transforming himself into a novelist, he maintained an active double life by continuing his work as a translator and editing the groundbreaking anthology, The Random House Book of Twentieth-Century Poetry . His prefaces to some of these books are included in Talking to Strangers , among them a heart-wrenching account of Stéphane Mallarmé's response to the death of his eight-year-old son, Anatole.
Auster pushed on with explorations into the work of American artists spanning various periods and disciplines: the notebooks of Nathaniel Hawthorne, the films of Jim Jarmusch, the writings of painter-collagist-illustrator Joe Brainard, and the three-hit shutout thrown by journeyman right-hander Terry Leach of the Mets. Also included here are several rediscovered works that were originally delivered in public: a 1982 lecture on Edgar Allan Poe, a 1999 blast against New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and one of the funniest introductions a poetry reading ever heard in the state of New Jersey.
A collection of soaring intelligence and deepest humanity, Talking to Strangers is an essential book by "the most distinguished American writer of [his] generation . . . indeed its only author . . . with any claim to greatness." ( The Spectator )
Previous editions have title: Collected prose : autobiographical writings, true stories, critical essays, prefaces, and collaborations with artists.
Includes bibliographical references (pages [387]-390)
The art of hunger -- New York babel -- Dada bones -- Ideas and things -- Truth, beauty, silence -- From cakes to stones -- The poetry of exile -- Innocence and memory -- Book of the dead -- Kafka's letters -- Reznikoff x 2 -- The Bartlebooth follies -- Poe's bones & Oppen's pipe -- Poe's bones -- Oppen's pipe -- The story of my typewriter -- Answer to a question from New York magazine -- Sentences containing the words "Charles Bernstein" -- Gotham handbook -- Postcards for Georges Perec -- Remembering Beckett -- By the book -- Twentieth-century French poetry -- Mallarme's son -- On the high wire -- Translator's note -- An evening at Shea -- The National Story Project -- A little anthology of surrealist poems -- The art of worry -- Invisible Joubert -- Running through fire -- Hawthorne at home -- Night on earth: New York -- Joe Brainard -- A life in art -- A prayer for Salman Rushdie -- Appeal to the governor of Pennsylvania -- The best substitute for war -- Banned British art in New York -- Reflections on a cardboard box -- Random notes-September 11, 2001-4:00 pm -- Underground -- NYC=USA -- Columbia: 1968 -- Talking to strangers -- Talking to strangers.
"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"-- Provided by publisher.