Baumgartner

By Paul Auster,

Book cover of Baumgartner

Book description

A taut yet expansive novel of love, memory, and grief from Paul Auster, best-selling, award-winning author and “one of the great American prose stylists of our time"  – New York Times

Paul Auster’s brilliant eighteenth novel opens with a scorched pot of water, which Sy Baumgartner -- phenomenologist, noted author,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Baumgartner as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This final novel by the late Paul Auster is one that both older readers and younger readers with aging parents will appreciate. It follows the endearing Sy Baumgartner, a 70-year-old philosophy professor, still mourning his wife, who passed away ten years ago. His memory is slipping, his body isn’t what it used to be, and he’s lonely. I laughed aloud at the funny parts and got misty-eyed at the poignant ones. The ending leaves room for interpretation—a great topic for discussion with other readers.

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