About this title: The author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" pens a work of literary non-fiction--a series of linked essays in praise of reading and writing.
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Description: Good. Purchasing this book supports the King County Library System Foundation. Thriftbooks and KCLSF have partnered to help raise additional funds for the library system. Ex-Library book-will contain library markings. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Purchasing this book supports the King County Library System Foundation. Thriftbooks and KCLSF have partnered to help raise additional funds for the library system. Ex-Library book-will contain library markings. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Purchasing this book supports the King County Library System Foundation. Thriftbooks and KCLSF have partnered to help raise additional funds for the library system. Ex-Library book-will contain library markings. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: New. 0061650927 Brand New Book With Remainder Mark. May Have Slight Shelf Wear. In-Stock Now For Immediate Secure Packaging & Delivery wear on DJ. read more
Description: Fine. 0061650927 Ships next business day. NEW/UNREAD! ! ! Text is Clean and Unmarked! --Be Sure to Compare Seller Feedback and Ratings before Purchasing--Has a small black line on bottom/exterior edge of pages. May have light shelf wear to cover from storage, if any. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Perennial Pr
Date Published: 2009-03-01
ISBN-13:9780061650925ISBN:0061650927
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780061650925. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780061650925ISBN:0061650927
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Edition: 8-3/4" x 5-3/4". 1st edition. 222 pp.
Binding: Black cloth binding with white stamped lettering on spine and
Publisher: McSweeney's Books,, San Francisco:
Date Published: 2008.
Description: NF/NF. Cover art by Jordan Crane. read more
Edition: Reprint
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: PERENNIAL
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780061650925ISBN:0061650927
Description: New. The author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" pens a work of literary non-fiction--a series of linked essays in praise of reading and writing. read more
Edition: First Thus
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Date Published: 2009
Description: Fine. Size: 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall; First Harper Perennial Printing. Trade Paperback in FINE Condition. Chabon's first collection of non-fiction--on Entertainment, the Short Story, Reading, Writing, on Cormac Mccarthy's The Road, and more and more by one this century's most gifted writers. read more
"what was that? oh, right, it was most of this book flying right over my head.
I picked this book up because I had read a Chabon novella (The Final Solution) that i really liked, and because the cover of this thing is just awesome. i read that it was his first book of non-fiction and i expected fascinating histories of the book's namesake -- maps and legends. not so. the first half of the book is dedicated to a deep and scholarly defense/examination of 'genre fiction,' which, apparently, encompasses all 'non-serious' fiction like short stories, fantasy, sci fi, mystery, comic books, etc. What saved Chabon from the doldrums of academic pontification was the subject matter -- what difference does it make if the guy shouts out Proust, it's about an 80s comic book called American Flagg! (exclamation point not mine). Despite the verbosity, Chabon manages to come to a pretty compelling point in each section, and his closing paragraph always elicits that nod/"hmm" acknowledgement noise/chin scratch combo that you get after any well-made argument is concluded.
The second half is more autobiographical, with stories part autobiography, part history and part fiction, and inescapably jew-flavored. the two halves make a weird combination, and the satisfied nods tend to disappear in the second half, replaced instead by author insight amusement.
While Chabon certainly seems to try to tie all these fragments together with loose themes -- golems, tricksters, self-discovery -- it ultimately reads as what it is, a collection of articles and short stories by a brilliant author, cobbled together haphazardly from numerous writerly/dorky sources in a way that leaves the reader confused.
This review sounds like a two-star, but the fact is that Chabon is brilliant, versatile and extremely thoughtful in his writing. even if you don't dig comic books, it's still pretty cool that an insanely intelligent dude like this one does, and the way he writes about them makes you think you probably should too."
"I'm a sucker for essay collections by my favorite authors, but I had never read anything by Michael Chabon before this title caught my eye on the way down an aisle at Powell's, probably as I was in search of something else. After reading Maps & Legends I have no doubt that Chabon would approve of the way I discovered him. Maps & Legends is a love song to reading, writing, & the power of imagination, and particularly reading & writing genre fiction. Having encountered prejudices against so-called genre fiction (basically anything that isn't straight-up realism) in my own writing career, I am always pleased to discover a mainstream author defending its charms and merits. Several of the essays focus on specific books and characters. Chabon makes me want to read whatever he happens to be discussing (with the exception of The Road by Cormac McCarthy--I am not allowed to read/watch end-of-the-world stories anymore, and having read his essay I feel I am sufficiently versed in the book's plot, anyway.) The fascinating essay about Sherlock Holmes and his author's tortured history with his most beloved character set off my current (and, I hope, lasting) Holmes obsession. He's also inspired me to pick up His Dark Materials again, my interest having waned during the second book. Chabon writes of the books he loved in childhood, comic books and graphic novels (a topic that does not interest me, but the essays themselves act as a nice study of the genre), and his own career as a writer. Chabon has enough storytelling charm to pull the latter off; while some writing memoirs fall flat, he manages to inspire rather than bore with tales of his successes, and more importantly, his failures. And while he is fond of using the big words, his writing style is so open and colorful that you not only want to read more of his work, you wish you could have a conversation with the guy. After doing all the proper research on the topic at hand, of course."
"Disclaimer: I only read the first three essays, and those while my daughter was playing with the trains in my local mega-bookstore. EVERYONE (okay, except for you) has recommended Chabon (even Genevieve!), and in my browsings I've been unimpressed. "Not for me, this thrillerish/science-fictiony/niche/card trick stuff." But his first essay in this book addresses that argument head-on -- it's only recently that snobs like myself have put up barriers between "real" fiction and the other genres. He makes a good argument. And THEN, in the second eponymous essay (Aparna, take note), he discusses how he was raised in a proto-utopian community, a suburb of Baltimore, 30 minutes from where I live here in the city, and how that experience shaped his ability to create his fictional worlds. A fitting homage to the dream of Columbia that was not quite realized. So I would recommend this collection, even to those who, like me, have been duly unimpressed by his other writing. Maybe, when I'm done with my Proust, I'll stop being such a snob? (Probably not. But at least I'll be able to say I'm very self-aware about it.)"
"In this book, Michael Chabon has done something very interesting - he has uplifted me and humbled me at the same time. It's a weird feeling, that combination, probably because I'm reviewing a book about literary criticism and the telling of stories, which put me in a kind of meta-reviewer mindset. Reading this book not only forced me to think about myself as a reader, but as a reviewer of and writer about books.
Let's do the first part and then I'll get to the second.
The beginning and ending of this collection of essays focuses on something very important regard the telling of stories: the idea that reading is entertainment. Reading a book or a short story, Chabon maintains, should be, first and foremost, fun. It should be a good way to rest your mind and give it a break from the rigors and stresses of daily life. Movies, music, juggling - those are all labeled entertainment and are generally accepted as being fun, so why not books? With me as a reader, Chabon was certainly preaching to the choir. I've always regarded reading as fun, and if I have time to spend with a book, then it's time well spent. But even I, the reader looking for a good time, have fallen prey to the idea that reading a book should Mean Something. I mean, look back on these reviews for a moment. How many times have I dug deep to find some kind of moral or philosophical "lesson" in a book that was probably written with nothing more in mind than to pass a few pleasant hours on an airplane? Far too often, and more often than not it was born of a desire to make the review a little longer than, "I liked this book and you will too."
Many readers have this secret shame that we're reading for fun. This drives us to pick up books that we wouldn't normally read - and in my case here I'm thinking about pretty much anything written by a Russian in the 19th and 20th centuries - in order to pick up some kind of intellectual cachet. We wander around the bookstore, dawdling before the "literature" section in the hopes that someone will see us there instead of in the science fiction/fantasy ghetto, which is where we really want to be. Chabon suggests that it is this ghettoization of books that contributes to such book snobbery and, if he had his way, he would see it gone. Every bookshop would be one section - Books.
The title of his book, Maps and Legends evokes this feeling. Maps, you see, serve two purposes. They chronicle where you have already been, showing you the roads you took and the things you saw. But, and possibly more importantly, they show you where you haven't been yet. Who among you has never sat down and looked at a map and thought, I wonder what's there? Even a map of the town in which you live can be oddly alluring. I lived in Kyoto for nearly nine years, and yet I could still look at a map and wonder where I should go next.
Books, Chabon maintains, should have the same quality. When I go into a modern bookstore, I head straight for the ports I know. I don't explore distant shores or unknown islands. I'm provincial, a homebody of the literary sort. Perhaps if there were a store where the map was different, the layout unfamiliar, I might discover new worlds that would have otherwise gone unnoticed.
So this is where the uplift comes - Chabon inspires me to be a better reader. To not only read more, but to read better. To not gloss over the details in order to enjoy the book, but to actively search for them. To stare at some part of a story and wonder, What is that? Have I been there before?
Where he humbles me is simply in his writing. For the purposes of this book, he and I are in the same field - talking about books and writing and how they affect us. And Chabon is much, much better at it than I am. His writing is a pleasure to read - not in that frenetic, sensory overload Tom Wolfe kind of way, but more in the same way one would enjoy a really good meal. You want to pause and roll the words around in your head for a moment before you move on. He digresses and wanders and then comes back again, just when you were wondering where he was going with all this.
In the essays to be found in this book, he looks at the immortal allure of Sherlock Holmes, the bleak horror of The Road, and the unfortunate lack of anything worthwhile for children to read. He talks of golems and death and imaginary homelands for speakers of dying languages, and makes it all compelling and enthralling. I want to write like Chabon when I grow up.
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