From the Archives: Novelist Paul Auster Tries Film.

Auster has been called "America's most spectacularly inventive writers." He recently "broadened his creative reach" with his work on two films, "Smoke" and "Blue in the Face,"in a double collaboration with director Wayne Wang , who also directed "The Joy Luck Club.” Auster's novels include "Moon Palace," "The Music of Chance," "Leviathan," and "Mr. Vertigo."

The author's new memoir, Winter Journal, is a history of his body — scars, panic attacks and near-death experiences. He tells Fresh Air how he got a reputation as a dirty fighter, why he doesn't drive and how hard it was to see his mother's dead body.

After Hustvedt suffered several unexplainable seizure-like episodes that defied medical diagnoses, she decided to chart her experiences -- and the murky intersection between mind, brain and body -- in a new book, The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves.