Paul Auster's new book

I had to see the Paul Auster page on the Wikipedia - the page I've read maybe a hundred times - to learn that the great writer has released another novel since I read - with great pleasure - his last work, Invisible. The title of the book is Sunset Park, Amazon lets you read the first eight pages or so and, as it always happens with me and Auster's books, I'm totally hooked and can't wait to get my hands on the novel.

I don't know what exactly makes Auster's novels tick - is it the polished, highly readable language? Or is it the plots that take you around New York streets, following one lonely soul after another? Maybe it's the red notebook (a standard spiralled 100-page lined notebook), which is present in almost every novel he's written? I don't know. It must be the combination of all those things and much, much more. In any case, Auster is among the very few writers (Orhan Pamuk is among them) whose every work fills me with inspiration, excitement, and joy. I like to think that these writers are my distant friends whom I have never met and who write the very books that I'm waiting to read.