Chabon is really smart and can really turn a phrase, but that was my problem with this book. It just seemed as if he were showing off to the reader how smart he is. Look at me, I'm the next James Joyce! The subject matter wasn't of much interest to me, either: trading cards and old records and bi...
Listened to this book on tape, since Chabon was reading it, I'm sure that added some to my enjoyment of this diverse series of essays on growing up as a son, learning to write and be a man, reflecting on his own writing and being a husband and father.Lots of topics are covered, not least of which...
Almost 4 stars. It reads like a collection of short stories...you can skip a few chapters or stories and not miss much. I knocked it down a star because I found too many stories not worth finishing. The ones i liked, I LOVED. Insightful, humorous, poignant. He speaks as a parent, and an imperfect...
Engaging graphics (to some people, at least) in The Incredibles style, cute story, and it slips in a couple of messages about taking care of yourself and your needs rather than taking anger out on others. You see, Awesome Man can't just go around kicking or pushing things when he gets mad, becaus...
The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man is an awesomely hilarious debut picture book from Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Chabon and animation illustrator Jake Parker. Awesome Man is a super hero who can do no wrong. He has an Awesome Power Grip, shoots positronic rays out of his eyeballs and...
Eh?I have started reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay with certain expectations - if not great, then at least considerable. I have seen Chabon's name pop up on this site pretty often, reminding me of the fact that I have not yet read anything by him - this seemed like an obvious cho...
Last summer I decided that I was going to read all of the Sherlock Holmes stories. I went to the library and found an extremely large and musty old book that contained every one of the short stories and novels. I spent the next week reading them one by one. As I got closer to the end of the book ...
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon, Harper Perennial, New York, 2005The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, first novel by young author Michael Chabon, is a coming of age story that tells the tale of Art Bechstein, a recent college graduate trying to find his way the summer before entering the re...
These days I come to short story collections cautiously.I don’t blame the stories. It’s my own fault.Six years ago, as I was working on my Ph.D., my advisor and I decided that in order to make myself more marketable to Departments of English in various schools I should specialize in something li...
A series of short stories great for the train commute. The 'wtf' factor for each story is pretty high and you have to really think about what is going on or what the author is trying to say. I really liked this book for a number of reasons. As people, we have expectations for ourselves and for ...
Wonder BoysOver Christmas I met a woman named Storm. When she found out I was a writer she became excited and inquisitive. Her therapist, she said, told her she should "reinvent" herself so she signed up for a five-day writer's workshop. She asked me all sorts of questions and I answered truthful...
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)Is Michael Chabon possibly our nation's greatest living writer? Oh, wait, I already know the answe...
My local library lists this as both adult fiction and young adult fiction, so I wasn't sure what to expect from it. Young adult novels have come a long way since the days of Sweet Valley High, but I still wanted something that would hold my attention without coming across as juvenile. "Wonder Whe...
Michael Chabon's sparkling first book of nonfiction 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 th...
His gait was dreamy and he swung a daisy as he went. With each step the boy dragged his toes in the rail bed, as if measuring out his journey with careful ruled marks of his shoetops in the gravel. It was midsummer, and there was something about the black hair and pale face of the boy against the...
The infield had been hastily raked and the outfield was patchy and weedy. It was on this very spot, the giant claimed, that Peavine's barnstorming ferishers had played a series of eighty-one games against him and his seventeen brothers (forming two squads, the Gnashers and the Thumpers, of nine g...
Engrossed in the study of a small ivory shatranj board with pieces of ebony and horn, and in the stew of chickpeas, carrots, dried lemons and mutton for which the caravansary was renowned, the African held the place nearest the fire, his broad back to the bird, with a view of the doors and the wi...
PITY THOSE—ADVENTURERS, ADOLESCENTS, authors of young-adult fiction—who make their way in the borderland between worlds. It is at worst an invisible and at best an inhospitable place. Build your literary house on the borderlands, as the English writer Philip Pullman has done, and you may find tha...
He bought a bag, and it was hot in the hip pocket of his twelve-dollar suit. He walked across the street to the square. Thomas was coming to America! He had a date for dinner! Crossing the park, he found himself puzzling over the secret of Hoffman’s cigarette trick. Where had he concealed the hol...