Michael Chabon

"Chabon has always been a magical prose stylist, adept at combining the sort of social and emotional detail found in Philip Roth's Goodbye, Columbus stories with the metaphor-rich descriptions of John Updike and John Irving's inventive sleight of hand. . . . As in his novels, he shifts gears easily between the comic and the melancholy, the whimsical and the serious, demonstrating once again his ability to write about the big subjects of love and memory and regret without falling prey to the Scylla and Charybdis of cynicism and sentimentality." -- Michiko Kakutani, New York Times "Wondrous, wise and beautiful." -- David Kamp, New York Times Book Review The bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Werewolves in Their Youth, Wonderboys, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and The Yiddish Policemen's Union Michael Chabon "takes his] brutally observant, unfailingly honest, marvelously human gaze and turns it on his own life" (Time) in the New York Times bestselling memoir Manhood for Amateurs.

A collection of essays on books and why they matter by the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer of THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY and WONDER BOYS. MAPS AND LEGENDS is a love song in sixteen parts – a series of linked essays in praise of reading and writing, with subjects running from ghost stories to comic books, Sherlock Holmes to Cormac McCarthy. Throughout, Chabon energetically argues for a return to the thrilling, chilling origins of storytelling, rejecting the false walls around ‘serious’ literature in favour of a wide-ranging affection. His own fiction, meanwhile, is explored from the perspective of personal history: post-collegiate desperation sparks his debut, THE MYSTERIES OF PITTSBURGH; procrastination and doubt reveal the way towards WONDER BOYS; a love of comics and a basement golem combine to create the Pulitzer Prize-winning THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY; and an enigmatic Yiddish phrasebook unfurls into THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN’S UNION.

"Chabon has always been a magical prose stylist, adept at combining the sort of social and emotional detail found in Philip Roth's Goodbye, Columbus stories with the metaphor-rich descriptions of John Updike and John Irving's inventive sleight of hand. . . . As in his novels, he shifts gears easily between the comic and the melancholy, the whimsical and the serious, demonstrating once again his ability to write about the big subjects of love and memory and regret without falling prey to the Scylla and Charybdis of cynicism and sentimentality." -- Michiko Kakutani, New York Times "Wondrous, wise and beautiful." -- David Kamp, New York Times Book Review The bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Werewolves in Their Youth, Wonderboys, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and The Yiddish Policemen's Union Michael Chabon "takes his] brutally observant, unfailingly honest, marvelously human gaze and turns it on his own life" (Time) in the New York Times bestselling memoir Manhood for Amateurs.

His quirky imagination, rich vocabulary, and ability to convey a sense of loss even in the midst of funny situations make me wish I’d picked him up years ago. Many people are probably most familiar with his work through the film Wonder Boys, which starred Michael Douglas and Toby McGuire, but Chabon’s writing has only improved since Wonder Boys was first published in 1995. With books like The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (which won the Pulitzer Prize), The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, and Gentlemen of the Road, Chabon has explored the growth of the comics industry, a completely imagined Jewish homeland in Alaska, and the trials of a pair of mercenaries in tenth century Kazakhstan.

A spellbinding yarn set a thousand years ago along the ancient Silk Road, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay'It's been a while since I had such fun reading a book' Daily Telegraph'Readers might feel they have reached the book equivalent of the Promised Land' The TimesGENTLEMEN OF THE ROAD is set in the Kingdom of Arran, in the Caucasus Mountains, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, A. D. 950. It tells the tale of two wandering adventurers and unlikely soulmates, variously plying their trades as swords for hire, horse thieves and con artists - until fortune entangles them in the myriad schemes and battles that follow a bloody coup in the medieval Jewish empire of the Khazars. Hired as escorts for a fugitive prince, they quickly find themselves half-willing generals in a mad rebellion, struggling to restore the prince's family to the throne. As their increasingly outrageous exploits unfold, they encounter a wondrous elephant, wily Rhadanite tradesmen, whores, thieves, soldiers, an emperor, and discover the truth about their young royal charge. Beautifully illustrated throughout, this is a novel brimming with raucous humour and cliff-hanging suspense, combining the spirit of The Arabian Nights with the action of The Three Musketeers.

#1 SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE BESTSELLER - NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE"A picaresque, swashbuckling adventure."--The Washington Post Book World They're an odd pair, to be sure: pale, rail-thin, black-clad Zelikman, a moody, itinerant physician fond of jaunty headgear, and ex-soldier Amram, a gray-haired giant of a man as quick with a razor-tongued witticism as with a sharpened battle-ax. Brothers under the skin, comrades in arms, they make their rootless way through the Caucasus Mountains, circa a.d. 950, living as they please and surviving however they can--as blades and thieves for hire and as practiced bamboozlers, cheerfully separating the gullible from their money. But when they are dragooned into service as escorts and defenders to a prince of the Khazar Empire, they soon find themselves the half-willing generals in a full-scale revolution--on a road paved with warriors and whores, evil emperors and extraordinary elephants, secrets, swordplay, and such stuff as the grandest adventures are made of. Praise for Gentlemen of the Road "Within a few pages I was happily tangled in Chabon's] net of finely filigreed language, seduced by an old-school-style swashbuckling quest . . . laced with surprises and humor."--San Francisco Chronicle " Chabon] is probably the premiere prose stylist--the Updike--of his generation."--Time "The action is intricate and exuberant. . . . It's hard to resist its gathering momentum, not to mention the sheer headlong pleasure of Chabon's language."--The New York Times Book Review " A] wild, wild adventure . . . abounds with lush language . . . This book roars to be read aloud."--Chicago Sun-Times

In a story exploring the theme of the artist's isolation, Grady Tripp, an obese, aging writer who has lost his way, and debauched editor Terry Crabtree struggle to rekindle their friendship, a sense of adventure, and purpose in their lives. Reprint. 20,000 first printing.

In this compelling collection of short stories, bestselling author Michael Chabon explores adolescent desire, love, friendship and fatherhood, moving subtly and incisively across this powerful emotional ground.

The brilliantly original new novel from Michael Chabon, author of THE ADVENTURES OF KAVALIERCLAY and WONDER BOYS.

For sixty years, Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a "temporary" safe haven created in the wake of revelations of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. Proud, grateful, and longing to be American, the Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant, gritty, soulful, and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. For sixty years they have been left alone, neglected and half-forgotten in a backwater of history. Now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end: once again the tides of history threaten to sweep them up and carry them off into the unknown. But homicide detective Meyer Landsman of the District Police has enough problems without worrying about the upcoming Reversion. His life is a shambles, his marriage a wreck, his career a disaster. He and his half-Tlingit partner, Berko Shemets, can't catch a break in any of their outstanding cases. Landsman's new supervisor is the love of his life--and also his worst nightmare. And in the cheap hotel where he has washed up, someone has just committed a murder--right under Landsman's nose. Out of habit, obligation, and a mysterious sense that it somehow offers him a shot at redeeming himself, Landsman begins to investigate the killing of his neighbor, a former chess prodigy. But when word comes down from on high that the case is to be dropped immediately, Landsman soon finds himself contending with all the powerful forces of faith, obsession, hopefulness, evil, and salvation that are his heritage--and with the unfinished business of his marriage to Bina Gelbfish, the one person who understands his darkest fears. At once a gripping whodunit, a love story, an homage to 1940s noir, and an exploration of the mysteries of exile and redemption, The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a novel only Michael Chabon could have written.

Art Bechstein steps out of the library into the summer of his graduation year. Not yet ready for respectability, he falls in with the exotic, charming Arthur Lecomte, and ricochets between a homosexual relationship and an intense affair with a strange and beautiful girl called Phlox. Before long, the world of his new friends and the underworld of his father must collide, with consequences that Art cannot control.

A brilliant reworking of the detective story by the much-acclaimed Michael Chabon, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIERKLAY.

Deep in the rural English countryside, an eighty-nine-year-old beekeeper--and one-time famous detective--becomes involved with nine-year-old Linus Steinman, a young refugee from Nazi Germany whose sole companion, an African grey parrot, spews out a mysterious series of German numbers that could hold the key to a dangerous secret. Reader's Guide available. Reprint. 100,000 first printing.

The Best American Series First, Best, and Best-Selling The Best American series has been the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction since 1915. Each volume's series editor selects notable works from hundreds of periodicals. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the very best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind. The Best American Short Stories 2005 includes Dennis Lehane - Tom Perrotta - Alice Munro - Edward P. Jones - Joy Williams - Joyce Carol Oates - Thomas McGuane - Kelly Link - Charles D'Ambrosio - Cory Doctorow - George Saunders - and others Michael Chabon, guest editor, is the best-selling author of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Wonder Boys, A Model World, and, most recently, The Final Solution. His novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000.

By the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. This P. S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

Winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize With this brilliant novel, the bestselling author of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Wonder Boys gives us an exhilarating triumph of language and invention, a stunning novel in which the tragicomic adventures of a couple of boy geniuses reveal much about what happened to America in the middle of the twentieth century. Like Phillip Roth's American Pastoral or Don DeLillo's Underworld, Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a superb novel with epic sweep, spanning continents and eras, a masterwork by one of America's finest writers. It is New York City in 1939. Joe Kavalier, a young artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdini-esque escape, has just pulled off his greatest feat to date: smuggling himself out of Nazi-occupied Prague. He is looking to make big money, fast, so that he can bring his family to freedom. His cousin, Brooklyn's own Sammy Clay, is looking for a collaborator to create the heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit the American dreamscape: the comic book. Out of their fantasies, fears, and dreams, Joe and Sammy weave the legend of that unforgettable champion the Escapist. And inspired by the beautiful and elusive Rosa Saks, a woman who will be linked to both men by powerful ties of desire, love, and shame, they create the otherworldly mistress of the night, Luna Moth. As the shadow of Hitler falls across Europe and the world, the Golden Age of comic books has begun. The brilliant writing that has led critics to compare Michael Chabon to John Cheever and Vladimir Nabokov is everywhere apparent in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. Chabon writes "like a magical spider, effortlessly spinning out elaborate webs of words that ensnare the reader," wrote Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times about Wonder Boys—and here he has created, in Joe Kavalier, a hero for the century. PraisegMichael ChabonAbout Wonder Boys "Mr. Chabon is that rare thing, an intelligent lyrical writer." —The New York Times Book Review"The young star of American letters . . . a writer not only of rare skill and wit but of self-evident and immensely appealing generosity."—Jonathan Yardley,The Washington Post Book World"Wonder Boys caught me up and carried me along like some kind of flying carpet. . . . Michael Chabon keeps us wide awake and reading." —Alan Cheuse,All Things Considered, National Public Radio"[A] beguiling and wickedly smart novel."—Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times Book ReviewAbout Werewolves in Their Youth"A loving craftsman and the author of superb, seemingly alchemically rendered sentences, Chabon has been producing pitch-perfect, at times even dazzling, fiction."—Michael Carroll, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Chabon's writing is deft and delicate -- almost every page includes a delightful phrase or two. He mingles dialogue, the Pittsburgh cityscape, descriptions of the characters' activity and Art's thoughts and feelings to achieve that magical illusion good novels give -- that the reader is living the character's life with all its savors, jokes and pangs." -- Boston HeraldThe New York Times bestseller debut that put Michael Chabon in the pantheon of great American novelists. The enthralling debut from bestselling novelist Michael Chabon is a penetrating narrative of complex friendships, father-son conflicts, and the awakening of a young man's sexual identity. Chabon masterfully renders the funny, tender, and captivating first-person narrative of Art Bechstein, whose confusion and heartache echo the tones of literary forebears like The Catcher in the Rye's Holden Caulfield and The Great Gatsby's Nick Carraway. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh incontrovertibly established Chabon as a powerful force in contemporary fiction, even before his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay set the literary world spinning. An unforgettable story of coming of age in America, it is also an essential milestone in the movement of American fiction, from a novelist who has become one of the most important and enduring voices of this generation.

Ethan is a hero on a quest though the world of American Faery. As baseball is their favourite game, this is a story of baseball, too. Along the way, hero and heroine find each other, true heroism is revealed and the faeries, or "ferishers", find someone new to play baseball against.