Rating: 
Summary: Dark, Brilliant, Intense
Review: Paul Auster's New York Trilogy is one of the finest books I've read in a long while; it's riveting. Auster is one of my favorite writers, and for those new to his writing The New York Trilogy is a good place to start.Essentially, these three novellas are detective stories with film-noir atmosphere, but the themes Auster tackles go beyond those of your standard spy novel. There are questions of identity, power dynamics, the relationship between the writer and his characters, the relationship between a detective and his suspects. Additionally, this is a wonderfully bookish book; references to Lewis Carroll, Cervantes, etc. abound. There are books within books within books; all the lines that separate reality from writing from fictional reality from fictional writing are blurred, turning the reader inside-out and upside-down as he or she reads. Most importantly, these novellas are highly engaging and evocative. Though Auster's writing has been described as cold and austere, these are compelling stories; it is easy succumb to the swift, gripping narrative. A truly lovely collection, very conceptual, breaks all the rules and wriggles its way out of any genre to which one might try to confine it.
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Summary: Paul Auster's "City of Glass" - A review
Review: In my advanced english course at school we were supposed to read Paul Auster's "City of Glass" the first of Paul Auster's detective stories from his book "The New York Triology". With no expectations i began to read the story about Daniel Quinn while thinking that it certainly would be one of those boring books we are often to read in school. But my first impression was wrong. With every line i read the story got more and more interesting. Paul Auster achieves it to build up an exciting story in which Daniel Quinn, a detective story writer, recieves a phone call with whom the story turns into a curios way. The main protagonist has to protect a man whose psychotic father wants to kill him. Quinn loses track of the mystery so that he loses everything he has. Almost the whole story is based on chance and gets interesting by curving the story of Don Quiote or the history of the Paradies. Paul Auster also succeeds in connecting themes like "identities","isolaton","hunger" and "poverty".
Rating: 
Summary: not a real detective story BY BROWNY
Review: We were suposed to read "City of Glass" out of Auster's NEW YORK TRILOGY in our English advanced class. I believe the mystery of chance and the multiple personalities of the protagonist are crucial for Austers first detective story. The well chosen setting fits perfectly into the plot. Auster writes about an isolated , lonely writer at the mid-thirty, who has pleasant success in writing detective stories. Just by accident the protagonist gets the opportunity to solve an obscure case as an pseudo-detetective. It is easy to follow the plot, but somehow the reader happens to mix up the charachters. But you will never be bored while reading it, even though there are parts of the story wiht not much suspense.
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Summary: A writer in search of himself
Review: A detective story only superficially. A thoughtful, interesting mental puzzle, not for the timid or casual reader. If it borrows from the traditional detective genre it is from Chandler or Thompson, a search by a lost soul among lost souls, with little hope or intention of being found. Auster provides the clue to where to begin to understand his book - look to Cervantes' Don Quixote. New York Trilogy is fundamentally a writer writing about writing, the creative process, losing one's self in order to create another, separate self. Auster's twist is that the journey back "home" to one's self, to an original identity (if such a thing does indeed even exist at the end of the process) is uncertain. Conrad pioneered the psychoanalytical approach to literature, the supreme struggle within one's own mind; cowardice and bravery, truth and fiction, overpowering the external, physical actions. Auster takes this approach to the extreme. Everything that has meaning exists in the psychological. What exists in the physical is at best a reflection of the mind's perceptions, an illusory substrate for the creative process (quantum physicists could relate to this - the physical has meaning only in relation to the observer, directly effected by the process of observation). It is also a terrifying confession to admit to a loss of one's own identity, to intentionally lose one's self in order to accomplish a specific end (the creation of a work of literature). To be, for an indefinite period, without a name, a home, a life to call your own. In the end it is, as Auster simply states, a question in response to a question. The answer is left for the reader to decide, it must come from the reader's own mind, if the reader is up to the challenge
Rating:
Summary: not a real detective story BY BROWNY
Review: We were suposed to read "City of Glass" out of Auster's NEW YORK TRILOGY in our English advanced class. I believe the mystery of chance and the multiple personalities of the protagonist are crucial for Austers first detective story. The well chosen setting fits perfectly into the plot. Auster writes about an isolated , lonely writer at the mid-thirty, who has pleasant success in writing detective stories. Just by accident the protagonist gets the opportunity to solve an obscure case as an pseudo-detetective. It is easy to follow the plot, but somehow the reader happens to mix up the charachters. But you will never be bored while reading it, even though there are parts of the story wiht not much suspense.
Rating:
Summary: review of "City of Glass"
Review: I like to give you a little impression of my opinion about Paul Auster's book "City of Glass". We were supposed to read it in the 13.form as a part of our main topic "detective stories".
It took us some time but it was more interesting than the other books we read in this year(Macbeth, Of Mice and Men). When you have read this book you get a closer look into the world's different identities and those of its citizen.
In Paul Auster's clever piece of work "City of Glass" fiction and reality is mixed up. The theme of chance is like in other works of Auster seen as the main topic of the story. Daniel Quinn, normally an author, who lost his family, is mixed up with Paul Auster and so starts to become a detective. During the story it is not obvious which identity the protagonist uses and who he will be next. The order of actions is unpredictable.
Paul Auster created a novel which is extraordinary and which will be kept in mind by every one who read it.
I would everybody give the advice to read this book because of its postmodernist style which suits very well to our time.
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Summary: Review of Paul Asters " city of glass"
Review: Hi I'm a german highschool studend. In class we were supposed to read "the city of glass". Today we all write a review on it.
Honestly it is not to much of a story for me. The fact I liked, was the fall of the protagonist. After all it is just an everyday story about the facts of life. I feel people deerve to be what they are, not more not less. And that's what happens. After getting a job the detectiv gets lost in his task. Eventually he loses almost evrything he ownes but what he always thought he would be. Altough one could be of the opinion that everything in our lifes is pales and therefor chance does not exist the reader is only confronted with chance. In the end you feel that you really should not do anyhing, just because chance can probably do better than you.
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Summary: Trying to be Clever
Review: We read City of Glass for our book club and 8 out of 9 of us could not bear to read the last two stories of the Trilogy. Though we all agreed it was well written, it was a story that carried the reader all over the place without actually ever arriving anywhere. Was Paul Auster trying to be clever or was he trying to write a good story? I believe cleverness was his intent, and in this case it is a shame because I missed a potentially good narrative.
Rating:
Summary: Not my style
Review: When you read a book and whatever you are reading doesn't say anything is a waist of time, half of this book is written that way, maybe the stories are good, but when you read and read and nothing happen or explain things that you already know (Like all the names of the streets in NY city) I said that the grass is to green, why? Because everybody knows that the grass is green, you don't have to read it in a book, reading these kind of "grass" makes the story boring and you don't want to know what will happen in the real story of the book, this is a really waste of time, paper and money for this book.
Rating:
Summary: Two out of three ain't bad
Review: Paul Auster's 'New York Trilogy' is widely hailed as a great piece of modern fiction. I agree. As a whole, it's fantastic. Reading each individual book, you'd never really figure out the connection between them all; which is almost a bonus in some ways. It leaves each one as a startling and enigmatic mark in your mind for days. However, the first two, especially City of Glass, are wonderful.
The third and last, the Locked Room, leaves a little to be desired. As a "tie up" for the first two, I find that the story and conclusion (one in the same) leave something to be desired and, while it does bear the mark of Auster's type of ending... it didn't feel to me like it was the best possible ending.
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