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'It is difficult to think of another book published this year, and probably any book to be published next year, that is so simple and so obvious, so excellent in intention and so elegant in its execution, and which displays such wisdom and such knowledge of human life in all its varieties.' Ian Sansom, Guardian; 'Fantastic... Glows with the truth of shared human experience.' The Face; 'Astonishing... This is writing at its very finest.' Independent

In September 1999, American author Paul Auster and a producer from America's National Public Radio came up with an idea. They would launch the National Story Project, asking for short stories that could be read on the radio. There were two requirements. First, the author must never have been published before. And secondly, the stories must be true, or, as Auster puts it in his introduction, 'true stories, that sounded like fiction'. The result was this remarkable collection, 180 stories chosen from over 4000 submissions. From just a few lines long to a few pages at most, the entries are testament to the voice of the ordinary American man and woman. Each is a perfect, small detail - a snapshot - from the writer's own life. Everyone has something extraordinary to relate. 'Vic bought the python after a very bad week at the halfway house...' begins one story, 'Early in my career as a crime-scene cleaner...' starts another. These may be ordinary people, but their experiences often border on the bizarre. They also speak of things greater than themselves. Although they focus in on a small detail, each piece illuminates its time. One tale describes how the local leader of the Klu Klux Klan was unmasked by his dog on a march; another tells how a man lost his mother's watch against the backdrop of Pearl Harbour. These stories, so small and personal, demonstrate how no-one lives in isolation; everybody's life is unavoidably touched by great events and movements. These are not writers with a capital 'W'. Yet their very simplicity of language is their strength; not one piece is overwritten, and adjectives are sparse. There is no artifice and no attempt at being overtly literary. We often deride amateur writing. But this collection shows that there is, after all, a little piece of writing in everyone. Review by Dea Birkett (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

Paul Auster was born in Newark, New Jersey in the United States in 1947. He graduated from Columbia University with an MA degree. In 1970 he worked as a merchant seaman on an Esso oil tanker. From 1971 to 1974 he lived in France, spending two years in Paris and one in Provence. After returning to New York in 1974, he began his writing career. Throughout the 1970s he wrote mainly poetry and essays which appeared in various magazines including the New York Review of Books. During the 1980s he concentrated on prose writing: a memoir and four novels were published.His screenplay Smoke and Blue in the Face was published in April 1996 to coincide with the release of the film, and in 1999 Faber published the screenplay Lulu on the Bridge. The Art of Hunger (a collection of essays, interviews and prose) and his Selected Poems were published in November 1998.He is the author of nine novels, including The New York Trilogy.

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