Paul Auster Books In Order

Publication Order of New York Trilogy Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Plays

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Paul Auster was a prolific American author and poet, famous for writing crime fiction novels. His works blended existentialism, absurdism, and the search for personal meaning and identity. Some of Auster’s most famous works include Moon Palace, The Music of Chance, The New York Trilogy, The Brooklyn Follies, and The Book of Illusions. His novels have been translated into more than 40 languages worldwide. Paul Auster was born on February 3, 1947, in Newark, New Jersey, United States, and passed away in April 2024.

His birth name was Paul Benjamin Auster, and he was born into a Jewish family. Auster’s parents, Samuel and Queenie Auster, were of Polish descent and lived a middle-class life. He had a younger cousin named Lawrence Auster, who was a conservative columnist. Auster spent his early years growing up in South Orange, New Jersey, and graduated from Columbia High School in Maplewood. Later, he graduated from Columbia University in 1970 and moved to Paris. His first job in Paris was translating French literature. Auster then returned to the U.S. and began writing essays, novels, and poems, including both original works and translations of French writers such as Joseph Joubert and Stéphane Mallarmé. Auster’s debut work was a memoir titled The Invention of Solitude, which received widespread acclaim. Following this, Auster penned three loosely connected detective fiction stories, which were collectively released as The New York Trilogy.

Auster’s approach to these stories was not typical of detective fiction. Instead, he used the detective form to address existential issues and questions related to literature, identity, language, and space, creating a unique style set in the postmodern era. Auster believed that the world is full of strange events and that reality is far more mysterious than commonly acknowledged. His later publications continued to explore themes of identity and personal meaning. Many of these works focused on the role of random events and coincidences, as well as the relationships between people and their environments. The protagonists in Auster’s stories are often depicted as being deeply committed to their work.

In 1995, Auster ventured into film direction, co-directing the movies Blue in the Face and Smoke. Auster also served on the Board of Trustees of the PEN American Center between 2004 and 2009 and was its Vice President from 2005 to 2007. Although Auster continually sought new ideas, he admitted that it had become increasingly difficult in recent years. He once publicly stated that he would never visit Turkey due to the ill treatment of journalists in the country. The last memoir written by Auster was titled A Life in Words, which discusses his writing craft in relation to his own life.

Auster was married twice in his lifetime. His first marriage was to fellow writer Lydia Davis, with whom he had a son named Daniel Auster. After their divorce, Auster married another writer, Siri Hustvedt, the daughter of scholar and professor Lloyd Hustvedt. The couple had a daughter named Sophie Auster. They lived together in Brooklyn.

One of Paul Auster’s notable books is The Brooklyn Follies, released by Picador in 2006. The main characters in the story are Tom Wood, Nathan Glass, and Harry Brightman. Auster set the plot in Brooklyn, New York City. At the start of the story, Nathan Glass arrives in Brooklyn to die. He is retired, divorced, and estranged from his only daughter. Previously, Nathan had worked as a life insurance salesman, but he is now forced to live in anonymity and solitude. After some time, Nathan reconnects with his long-lost nephew, Tom Wood, who works in a bookstore—a far cry from the brilliant, promising career Tom had once started. Tom’s boss is the charismatic and colorful Harry Brightman, who had once owned an art gallery in Chicago. It seems that fate has also brought Harry to Brooklyn. Through Harry and Tom, Nathan’s world gradually broadens to include new acquaintances. Soon, Nathan becomes entangled in a big scam involving a forged page of The Scarlet Letter. After this, he begins his own literary venture called The Book of Human Folly, an account of every embarrassment, blunder, inane act, pratfall, idiocy, and foible that Nathan has committed in his long and checkered career as a man.

Another interesting book written by Auster is The Book of Illusions, published by Picador in 2003. The lead characters in this novel are Hector Mann and David Zimmer. The story begins with David Zimmer, a Vermont professor, who loses his wife and two young sons and struggles to cope with his grief. Six months after their deaths, David drowns himself in alcohol and self-pity. One night, in his miserable state, he comes across a film clip of a silent comedian named Hector Mann. The clip piques David’s interest, and he soon embarks on an intriguing journey to research Hector Mann, the man who disappeared from the scene in 1929, and to write a book about his life. When David’s book is published the following year, he receives a letter containing an address in a New Mexico town, inviting him to meet Hector Mann. At first, David hesitates, but later, a woman arrives at his doorstep, prompting him to make the decision to meet Hector. From that moment, David’s life changes forever.