Here and Now

"[A] civilized discourse between two cultivated and sophisticated men...A pleasure to be in their company."--Michael Dirda, The Washington Post. "These two famous writers might seem at first an unlikely pairing...[but] as a series of collaborative inquiries and an extended meditation on the processes of friendship, the book has something substantive to offer."--The New York Times Book Review

"Here and Now is akin to eavesdropping on a dazzling, extended dinner conversation between two intelligent and substantive minds... A very appealing, human portrait of these two writers."--Bookpage

"A genial, often riveting exchange. Amiable and revealing missives from two remarkable minds."--Kirkus Reviews

"What keeps us reading is not the brilliance of the minds - though that feature is generously on offer as well - but the warmth, unpretentiousness, and honesty that emerges from these pages...An invigorating and deeply engaging look at two literary greats, as we've never seen them before."--thestar.com

"A striking portrait of two great friends...the result of Auster and Coetzee's exchange is nothing short of witty, sharp and thought-provoking, and offers a fascinating look into the minds of two of the 20th century's greatest writers."--Malibu Magazine

Praise for J. M. Coetzee

"Many, this reviewer among them, would consider [Coetzee] the greatest living novelist in English." --The New York Times Book Review

"Coetzee may turn out to be one of the last great novelists, exalted by the intensity of his self-awareness and his willingness to make his home in a spiritual and intellectual impasse of which few of his contemporaries were even aware."--The Nation



"South Africa's most brilliant novelist . . . challenges us to doubt our preconceived notions not only of love but of truth itself." --The Seattle Times

"Coetzee's signature brilliance...A mixture of penetrating insight and brittle wit that forces our attention on common terrors we don't want to think about."--The Washington Post



Praise for Paul Auster

"A writer of lean, genre-tinged novels whose unaffected prose belies their philosophical complexity....He's also one of our most playful novelists, a lover of narrative labyrinths on par with Borges, to whom he has often been compared."--The Washington Post

"Paul Auster is one of those sages with confounding talent--confounding for one because he's simply that good... He belongs among Vonnegut, Roth, and DeLillo."--The Daily Beast