Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Maps and Legends

3.65 of 5 stars 3.65 · rating details · 2,489 ratings · 394 reviews

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 the thrilling, chilling origins of storytelling, rejecting the false walls aroun...more

Hardcover, 222 pages

Published April 28th 2008 by McSweeney's

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

Best Book Cover Art

142nd out of 3,825 books — 3,999 voters

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

Best Books of 2008

147th out of 1,210 books — 6,529 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

May 19, 2008 Bryce Wilson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: lit-criticism

"Every book is a sequel, influence is bliss."

A passionate collection of work "In defense of entertainment." (mostly). That incisively examines pop culture and the inbred desire to put it down as something to be moved passed. When people complain about Chabon it's often his tendency to bite off a shitload more then he can chew that gets their knives out. Part of the charm of maps and legends is just how slight the essays are. They're not about charting America, mapping the psyche, or symbolism be...more

6 likes · like · see review

Bryce Wilson The cover is freaking gorgeous. The picture doesn't do it justice.

Each little element you see in that picture is actually devised of a separate piece...more
May 19, 2008 10:40pm

Noran Miss Pumkin Thanks for yet again a great detailed review!
Aug 20, 2008 10:25am

Michael I enjoyed your review, but I'll disagree with your take on the more personal essays in the collection. Those essays, much like his ruminations on that...more
Sep 24, 2009 10:07pm

Apr 23, 2008 Paul rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2008

Michael Chabon loves genre fiction. Here's what each essay in this collection concerns, in a word or two: genre fiction, MC's childhood town, Sherlock Holmes, Norse mythology, Philip Pullman, comics, comics, McCarthy's The Road (as science fiction), ghost stories, comics, comics, MC as a young writer*, MC's writing his second novel, golems, being Jewish, golems/being Jewish. This isn't a mistake or anything; there's a quote in the first essay that says something about the most successful authors...more Michael Chabon loves genre fiction. Here's what each essay in this collection concerns, in a word or two: genre fiction, MC's childhood town, Sherlock Holmes, Norse mythology, Philip Pullman, comics, comics, McCarthy's The Road (as science fiction), ghost stories, comics, comics, MC as a young writer*, MC's writing his second novel, golems, being Jewish, golems/being Jewish. This isn't a mistake or anything; there's a quote in the first essay that says something about the most successful authors succeeding in the borderlands, meaning in those gray areas between genre fiction and literature, and the book's subtitle is, indeed, Reading and Writing from the Borderlands. As such, the collection has a definite cohesiveness, though I found this to be actually a limitation, as the whole thing felt a bit rushed. Essay collections usually comprise things that have already been published, sometimes over the course of an entire decade, and each one feels singular, polished, diversified. This collection, however, has the feel of having been written in one sitting (though there are a few things therein that dispel this thought). The entire thing is only 220 pages long and, as you may have deduced from the above, there are sixteen essays. That's less than fourteen pages a piece, and most are much shorter. From a guy as prolific and prolix as Chabon, this seemed a bit odd.

Also, dude has a more sprawling and esoteric vocabulary than David Foster Wallace. I guess that's all there is to say about that, but shit, man. Keep a dictionary handy.

So, the design. McSweeney's did a great job, as usual, of creating a really cool package. I won't describe it, you can see it here: http://www.designrelated.com/inspirat... . Once you get inside the thing, though, you start to notice some pretty shoddy underpinnings. I caught -- I caught -- two instances of double spaces, meaning two spaces between words within a sentence, I caught several cases of words that were hyphen-ated in the middle of a line, where obvi-ously no hyphen was required, I caught a few misspellings, and then MANY, let's say 8 to 10, instances of soft returns that make for horrid letterspacing -- this is something I can't really show here, but what happens is a designer/typesetter puts an arbitrary soft return at the end of a line to fix a widow or a bad break or something, and everything looks fine, but then a word gets changed by an editor e.g. and the designer/typesetter forgets to remove the soft return and what you get is a paragraph whose top half is packt like sardines and whose second half is as spacey and airy as a Terrence Malick film. It's not hot. And all of this is a case of bad (or nonexistent) copyediting/proofreading. I should say that yes, it is a huge part of my job to recognize and fix errors like these, i.e. I literally spend hours every day flowing manuscripts into book layouts and then going through and fixing bad breaks, letterspacing, typos, etc., so my eyes are trained, but I definitely don't go through books looking for errors. It just doesn't happen. This was totally egregious, and quite disappointing.

All this said, MC's a good writer, so it was no chore to make my way through this collection. I didn't really get much out of it, but that's probably my fault for not being a fan of science fiction.

---
*This essay actually kind of pissed me off. It's about MC graduating college and moving to California in hopes of getting into an MFA program. He gets two recommendations from undergrad professors who attended, respectively, Stanford and UC Irvine, and the Stanford one doesn't pan out so he's forced -- forced -- to begrudgingly -- begrudgingly -- attend, instead, one of the best programs in the nation. What a bummer. What also miffed me about this essay is that it's all, "When I first sat down to write my debut novel, you may have heard of it but of course at the time I had no idea it would be so successful, I was using this old-ass computer with a tiny green and black screen, I was in this old basement with a crappy workbench, I was so naive and unsure of myself, ho ho, I was only twenty-two," and the only logical conclusion is "And now I've published multiple best-sellers and won the Pulitzer -- isn't it funny how life works out sometimes?" I dunno. Some might call this jealousy -- MC would use a different word probably, one with like eight syllables and Greek roots. It struck me as glib, if unintentionally. And it also represented a major turning point in the collection, in that the focus of the essays shifted decidedly from other authors/subjects to MC himself. The very next essay was, as I mentioned, about him as a slightly-older author working on his second novel. Come on, Chabon. (less)

6 likes · like · see review

Apr 13, 2009 Alessandra rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009

This probably could have been called "In Defense of Genre Fiction," and I'm glad that someone like Michael Chabon is making such important points in favor of genre fiction. I just wasn't blown away by a lot of the essays--they were smart and well-written, but they were occasionally lacking in depth. (Not all of them, mind you.) For instance, the essay about Sherlock Holmes was really engaging, but then I felt it didn't go anywhere in particular. He mentioned fanfiction at the very end, and then...more

5 likes · like · see review

Jun 20, 2008 Noel VerDine rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: mcsweeneys

I really can't take Mr. Chabon's essay style. At all. I love him dearly as a novelist, Kavalier and Clay is one of my favorite books of all time, and I enjoyed The Yiddish Policeman's Union as well. His self indulgent prose is very much like the descriptive passages in his novels, but it seems that when you take away the plot-motivating aspect of the words, I can't stand him. Michael Chabon is a very talented writer, and the next time he publishes a novel, I will be in line to buy it, I just cou...more

4 likes · like · see review

May 05, 2008 Alexandra rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: children, former children

Oh that clever Michael Chabon. What a wit. He's precocious, you know. Sheeer talent. So tender, so--for lack of a better word--raw. Don't. You. Dare. For. Get.

But I mean, getting past the endless (admittedly lush) lists and lists of anything you could possibly list and more (semi-colon dash semi-colon period repeat), he really is a fierce essayist with clean ideas and enticing presentation. I admit to being a kid who relished fantasy and then was scared off it when I learned that such sub-genres...more

5 likes · like · see review

Jan 14, 2009 Thomas rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: literature, criticism

Loved it. Anybody who can name-check conan the barbarian and Blue Duck in a single paragraph is writing straight at me. A collection of essays collected from various sources, but each bearing Chabon's near delirious swirl of language and concept. The essays are gathered around several basic concepts, the core being what is writing, what is fiction what are these lands we explore through stories.

Gripping stuff, and what's more, the most beautiful book I own.

3 likes · like · see review

May 22, 2012 Katrina rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Katrina by: Benjamin

Shelves: berkeley, owned

Michael Chabon has a fascinating style of writing and thinking about books and all the ways we interact with them. He blends memoir and fiction in a seamless, engaging narrative that tells us as much about the author as the books he reviews. That's what several of the essays in this compilation boil down to: lovingly crafted reviews of books or authors that Chabon chooses to share with a wider audience. In some cases, the summaries felt a little heavy. I've read His Dark Materials, for instance,...more

1 like · like · see review

Apr 06, 2009 Lori rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2009

I love Michael Chabon and I wanted to love this book, but I didn't. I had no problem whatsoever with his "manifesto": That genre writing can be just as "literary" as "literary" writing and what's up with these labels anyway? I like a lot of the writing he talks about (Conan Doyle, ghost stories, slipstream, Pullman's His Dark Materials, his own stuff).

What I couldn't help noticing, though, is that these pieces weren't meant to make up a book together. They all touch upon some aspect of reading...more

1 like · like · see review

Aug 28, 2008 Joseph rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Not all of this was new to me, but I've got somewhat of a soft spot for Chabon's ruminations on genre fiction. The man makes a good argument about how foolish it is that some writing can be considered Literature, while other writing is condemned to be thought of as little more than a childish diversion, merely because of the subject matter.

Nevertheless, he feels a bit like a mad prophet shouting in the desert. Capital-L Literature ain't going nowhere.

As the book proceeds, the essays become more...more

1 like · like · see review

Sep 01, 2008 Terence rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary-criticism

This is a collection of essays tracing the influences on Chabon's writing and some of the reasons he writes. All of them are interesting to varying degrees. The following notes are about the essays that aroused my particular interest but the entire volume is recommended for Chabon fans (of whom I'm not really one) and anyone interested in that genre of authorial self-examination (of whom I am one).

The first essay, "Trickster in a Suit of Lights" takes up the argument that the short story needs t...more This is a collection of essays tracing the influences on Chabon's writing and some of the reasons he writes. All of them are interesting to varying degrees. The following notes are about the essays that aroused my particular interest but the entire volume is recommended for Chabon fans (of whom I'm not really one) and anyone interested in that genre of authorial self-examination (of whom I am one).

The first essay, "Trickster in a Suit of Lights" takes up the argument that the short story needs to push or even cross genre boundaries in order to renew itself.

In another essay, "Fan Fictions: On Sherlock Holmes," Chabon indulges in a Freudian analysis of Conan Doyle and the origins of his greatest, if self-avowedly least loved, character, Sherlock Holmes. He also explores the consequences when Doyle blurs the line between fact and fiction by presenting the stories as taken from the notes kept by Dr. Watson. The concluding paragraph is my favorite: "Through parody and pastiche, allusion and homage, retelling and reimagining the stories that were told before us and that we have come of age loving...have left for us, hoping to pass on to our own readers...some of the pleasure that we ourselves have taken in the stuff we love; to get in on the game. All novels are sequels; influence is bliss." (p. 57)

In "Kids' Stuff," Chabon pleads for a return to comic books written for kids (not that he hates the "graphic novel"; other essays heap praises on some of its most noted authors) and suggests four principles to follow to make them competitive with all the other media bombarding children today:

1. We should tell stories that we would have liked to hear or read as kids.

2. Build stories that build up an intricate mythology that is accessible and comprehensible at any point of entry. Every story should be a self-contained thread in a tapestry. The thread can be intricate and beautiful all on its own but is also part of a larger picture that could enrich the understanding of the viewer.

3. Cultivate a readiness to retell the same stories with endless embellishment -- repetition with variation.

4. "Let's blow their little minds" -- and not just with over-the-top action sequences. Let's shake up their world and show how much vaster and marvelous it can be. (pp. 92-94)

In "Dark Adventure: On Cormac McCarthy's The Road," Chabon argues "the audacity and single-mindedness with which The Road extends the metaphor of a father's guilt and heartbreak over abandoning his son to shift for himself in a ruined, friendless world that The Road finds its great power to move and horrify the reader." (p. 120)(less)

2 likes · like · see review

May 25, 2008 El rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: lit-crit, yinzers-n-at

Anyone who has worked in a bookstore, or spent quality time in one, can appreciate Michael Chabon's argument that there is a gray area between "literature" and "genre fiction". Many of his essays in his first (and personally long-awaited) nonfiction collection focus on that gray area, the "borderlands" as he calls it, specifically in regards to fantasy/sci fi and mystery. There are books that straddle that fine line between literature and genre and it's often difficult to decide exactly where to...more Anyone who has worked in a bookstore, or spent quality time in one, can appreciate Michael Chabon's argument that there is a gray area between "literature" and "genre fiction". Many of his essays in his first (and personally long-awaited) nonfiction collection focus on that gray area, the "borderlands" as he calls it, specifically in regards to fantasy/sci fi and mystery. There are books that straddle that fine line between literature and genre and it's often difficult to decide exactly where to place it on the shelf. The biggest difficulty, suggests Chabon, is that genre fiction is generally looked down upon as something less important than full-blown literature. He himself grew up wanting to write about space adventures but as he discovered while writing his second novel (which was finally abandoned after many years when he turned to his Wonder Boys) about just that, there was a lot of insecurity surrounding writing what many would consider to be just pulp.

His examples of borderland genre fiction range from Doyles' Sherlock Holmes to Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy. There are a handful of chapters about one of Chabon's best known obsessions: comics. He continues to maintain that comics are just as literary in his household as any bigwig piece of LITERATURE. His chapter surrounding the question of why children no longer read comics was interesting, though, as it came up in discussion in my home, there was no mention of inflation in Chabon's essay and how children no longer could afford to buy their own comics as they could in the 60s.

Another handful of chapters surrounding Chabon himself: his life, his times, his work. He opens up a lot and shares a lot of his insecurities. He looks back on his graduate school years with a self-deprecating voice, bordering on super snotty. But I enjoy reading the processes my favorite writers have gone through in their career, from the bottom of the barrel when life couldn't suck more to the absolute elation when their dreams are published.

His discussion of golems was a nice suprise personally, and I would like to read more of his thoughts on that in the future.

The final chapter was discordant in connection with the rest of the essays. He talks about being a Jewish writer in the world and who that makes him. Not uninteresting on its own, but sort of a stretch when trying to combine it with the rest; this made the book of essays fall flat.

All in all these essays were great and he did not let me down. I expect to see more of his nonfiction in the future, and I for one would not be opposed to reading a history or full-length memoir if he decided to do so.

He actually made me think twice about Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. Had I not already read those books before reading Chabon's essay I might actually be persuaded to read them. But because I have read them, despite Chabon's convictions on their worth, he and I totally disagree on that matter. I will find it in my heart to forgive him though.(less)

3 likes · like · see review

May 25, 2008 James rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Fans of Michael Chabon

After reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay some years ago, I promptly became a devoted disciple of Michael Chabon. If I was well read and given to making sweeping generalizations, I would be inclined to declare Chabon the greatest living writer. Such as it is, I avoid committing to sweeping generalizations and still have a lot more reading to do before I declare a Greatest Living Writer. And by then they’ll be dead so I’ll have to keep reading. Alas,

I recommend Kavalier and Clay t...more After reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay some years ago, I promptly became a devoted disciple of Michael Chabon. If I was well read and given to making sweeping generalizations, I would be inclined to declare Chabon the greatest living writer. Such as it is, I avoid committing to sweeping generalizations and still have a lot more reading to do before I declare a Greatest Living Writer. And by then they’ll be dead so I’ll have to keep reading. Alas,

I recommend Kavalier and Clay to anyone who listens (and even to some who don’t). But when recommending Kavalier and Clay, I always recommend a supplementary volume to accompany one’s reading of Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel: a dictionary. You see, Michael Chabon has an extensive vocabulary. Saying that Chabon knows a lot of words would be like saying the ocean has a lot of water molecules in it. The dude’s diction is hot! And don’t get me started on the boy’s syntax. That shit is off the hook, dawg.

Word Choice. It’s kind of what writers are supposed to be good at. But Chabon is better. His sentences and words are just always so damn perfect. As an aspiring writer, Chabon intimidates me to no end because I know I will never be as good as him. If I were a writer, I would want to write like him. But Chabon already writes like Chabon, so what’s the point, right? I read Chabon and find myself muttering slurs to him out of sheer disdain and jealousy.

Chabon has been a bit prolific as of late. Following Kavalier and Clay, there was Final Solution. Then The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. Then Gentlemen of the Road. And now Maps and Legends, his first work of non-fiction. And with Maps and Legends, Chabon has not relented with his impressive vocabulary. There are words like arriviste, appurtenances, pasquinade, asymptotically, punctilio, priggish, peregrinations, bathyspheric, aetataureate, and empyrean. But some words are even too obscure for Chabon, so he defines them. Which he does upon using anagnorisis (moment of recognition). His definitions sometimes serve a point, as they do when he reminds us that excoriated literally means “to have one’s skin removed.”

At one point Chabon uses the phrase “baby murder.” This usage struck me as odd. Why didn’t he use “infanticide?” “Infanticide” is a perfectly fine word. But upon further counsel and thought, I decided that “baby murder” was a far superior choice of words. “Baby murder” captures a sentiment in the reader that “infanticide” would not. And that is Chabon’s great skill. He knows all the words and he knows how to use them and when to use them and when to use their definitions.

Published by McSweeney’s, Maps and Legends is a simply beautiful book. McSweeney’s seems to be settling on a cohesive aesthetic because the cover of Maps and Legends carries striking similarities to Bowl of Cherries with its partial dust jacket that reveals the actual book cover. Which I’m a fan of. I hate dust jackets. They’re so stupid. Why do we need them? That’s why What is the What is so great. Besides being a fantastic book, it has no dust jacket. Just a small band on the back cover for blurbs.

Throughout the essays that comprise Maps and Legends, Chabon champions “genre fiction” in general and ghost stories, science fiction, graphic novels, short stories, and comics in particular. The very first essay is a true winner with Chabon analyzing the modern short story, the entertainment industry and encouraging all of us to be better readers and critics. He provides some analysis of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Phillip Pullman’s The Golden Compass, and even weighs in on the recent spate of fibbing memoirists with a story of his own that acknowledges his vocation as a “professional liar.” Chabon describes this particular essay’s subject as “the interrelationship between truth and lies, memory and invention, history and story, memoir and fiction, the sources of narrative and the storytelling impulse; the inevitable fate of liars to be swallowed up or crushed by their lies; and the risks inherent both in discounting the power of outright fiction to reveal the truths of a life, and in taking at face value the fictions that writers of memoir present as fact.”

Get Michael Chabon on Oprah. James Frey wishes he was this articulate and eloquent.(less)

4 likes · like · see review

May 01, 2008 Mark rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: essays, read-2008, nonfiction

Michael Chabon champions genre fiction in this collection of sixteen linked essays, exploring everything from Sherlock Holmes to Philip Pullman, from comic books to Norse myth. Maps and Legends is a slim book and the essays are short, yet I found myself drifting off until Chabon started delving into his own experience - as a child, as a writer - these were the essays that grabbed my attention because they better utilized Michael Chabon's greatest asset, the ability to tell a good story. [ full r ...more

1 like · like · see review

Mar 23, 2009 Adele rated it 3 of 5 stars

I love Chabon. But I have to say, I glossed over a couple of these essays the first time I saw them in the New Yorker or wherever, and had the same reaction when I saw them a second time. The essays in Maps and Legends fall into three categories: dull, readable, and really quite good. I don't know why, but I'm just really not interested in Chabon's deconstructions of superheros and comic books. Not because I don't like those things (especially the latter) but because I think we have very differe...more

1 like · like · see review

Jan 07, 2009 Stop added it

Shelves: reviewed

Read the STOP SMILING review of Maps and Legends:

Since the release of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, the novel that won its author the Pulitzer Prize, Michael Chabon has been a genre-blending machine. Having dispensed with the Cheever-esque fiction of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, he turned his attentions to the Victorian mystery novel in The Final Solution and a Dumas-like historical adventure in Gentlemen of the Road. Now, with Maps and Legends, a collection of 12 essays, Chabon w...more

like · see review

Aug 24, 2012 Robert Strandquist rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: while-in-belgium

Chabon's dynamic writing voice is the main attraction in this scattered account of his own formative readings and subsequent writings. He even includes direct excerpts from his favorite writers as well as a few samples from his chilhood hand. Throughout the 210 pages highlights appear in the early "Sherlock Holmes" section where Chabon revels in Conan Doyle's style and recalls that his own first real efforts imitated Doyle. Another highlight for me was the contrast he drew between the rather fla...more

like · see review

Jan 28, 2012 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a splendid book. The last two essays are the best, in my opinion, so you should feel free to read it backwards. If you liked The Yiddish Policemen's Union or The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, even a little bit, say not enough to finish them, you should still get this book for those last two essays.

My copy was a present from the author of Caszandra who picked it largely because the book itself is just so damn beautiful as an object. Get this edition just to sit on your shelf...more

like · see review

Aug 10, 2010 Jamie rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Heather Anne, Ashley, et. al.

In the essay “Kids’ Stuff,” Chabon gives the following entreaty to those who think the younger generation is too modern, too sophisticated for the traditional rites of good old fashioned storytelling:

“Let’s blow their little minds. A mind is not blown, in spite of whatever Hollywood seems to teach, merely by action sequences, things exploding, thrilling planetscapes, wild bursts of speed. Those are all good things; but a mind is blown when something that you always feared but knew to be impossib

...more In the essay “Kids’ Stuff,” Chabon gives the following entreaty to those who think the younger generation is too modern, too sophisticated for the traditional rites of good old fashioned storytelling:

“Let’s blow their little minds. A mind is not blown, in spite of whatever Hollywood seems to teach, merely by action sequences, things exploding, thrilling planetscapes, wild bursts of speed. Those are all good things; but a mind is blown when something that you always feared but knew to be impossible turns out to be true; when the world turns out to be far vaster, far more marvelous or malevolent than you ever dreamed; when you get proof that everything is connected to everything else, that everything you know is wrong, that you are both the center of the universe and a tiny speck sailing off its nethermost edge.”

He’s mourning the fact that we’ve forgotten how to write for kids, that comic books are no longer the collective language of childhood, but by the standards he sets forth we’ve largely forgotten how to write for anyone. Hell, by those standards, we’ve forgotten how to live. “Anybody who thinks that kids get bored by hearing the same story over and over again has never spent time telling stories to kids.” And anybody who discounts the power of the same old “kids’ stuff,” the elemental magic, the basic human need to lay claim to the same old stories with their endless variations and derivations, has forgotten what it’s like when the impossible turns out to be true.

In the earlier essay “Fan Fictions”— making the wildly lovable assertion that all literature, highbrow or low, from The Aeneid onward, is fan fiction— Chabon notes the particular joy and pleasure of the “magical gaps,” the blank spaces on the map. “All enduring popular literature,” he writes, “has this open-ended quality, and extends this invitation to the reader to continue, on his or her own, with the adventure.” It’s the infinite horizon of play, he says, the endless game board, that spawns, without trying, that contemporary fandom that has become indistinguishable from contemporary popular art.

And this theory I love, because— seriously, try me sometime in my defense of plot holes, I’ll have to write an essay elsewhere before I write one here— it could digress right into my argument that any entertainment worth enduring devotion or of lasting value has to, at least to one degree or another, collapse under its own weight enough to write you into the story.* Leave gaps, leave coughs and hiccoughs and messes— like Chabon notes of Arthur Conan Doyle, whether by artlessness or by design— and you’ve left instead the secret passageways, the keys and clues and sanction to endlessly tell and retell a thousand-fold stories. It’s nothing less than the personal invitation to that lucky realm where to love something is to never let it go.

So yes, this is one great collection of essays, by someone who gets that to love a story is to live in it. Also, to anyone looking for added inducements, I should mention that the McSweeney’s hardcover edition of this book may very well be one of the most beautiful books on my shelf.

*An argument that inevitably and happily devolves into me citing The X-Files at length. But then again (and to further underscore all points being made here) any argument pretty much devolves into me happily citing The X-Files.(less)

1 like · like · see review

Mar 25, 2010 Charlotte rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a LOT of Michael Chabon in one place, probably more than I need, but I bought it for my husband, and because the book is so beautiful--THREE differently colored overlapping dust jackets. I think McSweeney's must grow money on trees in their offices or something. I like Chabon most when he's talking about other writers and why they're cool, and I really like that he's so active in supporting fantasy/sci-fi/comics as more than "just genre fiction" and totally agree with the best essay in h...more

like · see review

Jan 13, 2010 Alan rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Fans of the man, the erudite and discursive

Recommended to Alan by: Another library shelving cart, and of course by previous work

The brilliant fiction writer Michael Chabon turns out also to be an engaging essayist—no surprise, perhaps, but still a great pleasure to read.

This impression is not at all harmed by the number of his opinions with which I agree. From the autobiographical title essay through his musings on Sherlock Holmes and Philip Pullman to his concluding riffs on Yiddish and the Trickster motif... I found myself frequently nodding along with Michael Chabon's perambulations "along the Borderlands" of literatu...more

like · see review

Nov 11, 2009 Spencer rated it 3 of 5 stars

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, encompas...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.(less)

like · see review

Sep 21, 2009 Casey rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Writers & Readers

Shelves: favorites

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 a...more

like · see review

Sep 07, 2009 Robin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

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 m...more

like · see review

Aug 25, 2009 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: essays

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 t...more 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.

If there's higher praise, I don't know it.(less)

like · see review

Jul 26, 2009 Matt Briggs rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a reassuring book and collects essays that been elsewhere. I think in terms of Chabon's overall work this is something anyone who follows his work should read. However collected here the overall tone of the essays Chabon is trying to be reassuringly erudite) just doesn't work. On one hand, he strikes me as an honest essayist who allows his ignorance, knowledge, enthusiasm, and secrets to just hang out there. This doesn't feel like a front, or as manipulation, and in this way, these essay...more

like · see review

Jun 28, 2009 Elizabeth K. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009-new-reads

Over the years I've grown so nervous about essays on literature written by authors whose fiction I deeply like, because it can be so disappointing if it doesn't work out. Sometimes when I read them, and realize the author and I have very different viewpoints about reading and literature, it feels like rejection. Personal rejection. So it was with great nervousness I started this, and right in the introduction, he breaks out with "Like most people who worry about whether it's better to be wrong o...more

like · see review

Apr 27, 2009 Visha Burkart rated it 2 of 5 stars

A first work of non-fiction from Michael Chabon, author of The Adventures of Cavailier and Clay and The Yiddish Policeman's Union. Absolutely love the hardback cover-art - so creatively done; however, to find this collection of essays on writing most helpful, you should be fairly well-read. Otherwise, you are going to be playing catch-up, rather than be inspired to later read the works. Case in point: his essay on Cormac McCarthy's The Road (this essay was recommended by Branson). While it was a...more

like · see review

Jan 28, 2013 David rated it 2 of 5 stars

I wanted to like this book, and I almost made it there. Chabon's defense of genre fiction is near and dear to my heart, and his essays on Sherlock Holmes and Philip Pullman offer some powerful insights. But this collection is just much too self-aware, too self-indulgent and too unfocused. Chabon's writing comes so highly praised that I'm skeptical of my own dislike. Even so, I couldn't shake the sense that, aside from a few pages (particularly the final handful) where his passion takes over from...more

like · see review

Jun 05, 2012 Eric rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Pop culture scholars

Shelves: essays, writing

Chabon waxes poetic on many topics, including -- but not limited to -- the short story, the edges of maps as places of wonder and exploration, Sherlock Holmes, Loki, the His Dark Materials trilogy, comic books, American Flagg!, Volume 1, The Road, and ghost stories. The main theme of most of the essays revolves around the concept of the "borderland" between genre fiction and literary fiction, a topic which Lev Grossman recently touched upon here.

So much so did I appreciate Chabon's point-of-view...more

4 likes · like · see review

Mar 18, 2010 Sheila rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read2010

I love serendipitious books--sometimes I'll go to the library after work and just wander the shelves, even though I have a few dozen unread books at home and a roommate who looks at me like I'm crazy. Sometimes it's terrible; you get three pages in and have to put it down because you're frightening the people on the train with your reaction. Sometimes it's okay, and at least passes the time. And sometimes it's sheer brilliance. It's a new Regency author with a fifty-book backlist you can jump in...more

like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 99 100 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Imagining homeworlds: fantasy, fables, fictions	1	12	Sep 02, 2008 09:14am

combine
Other Editions (8)

More editions...

Genres

Non Fiction

158 users

Writing > Essays

110 users

Language > Writing

27 users

Writing > Books About Books

17 users

Literature

13 users

Autobiography > Memoir

9 users

Short Stories

8 users

Criticism

7 users

Literary Fiction

7 users

Criticism > Literary Criticism

7 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

Shakespeare Wrote for Money
by Nick Hornby
McSweeney's Issue 16
by Ann Beattie
McSweeney's Issue 20
by Dave Eggers
The Disappointment Artist
by Jonathan Lethem
Rereadings: Seventeen writers revisit books they love
by Anne Fadiman (Editor)

About Michael Chabon

Michael Chabon (b. 1963) is an acclaimed and bestselling author whose works include the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000). Chabon achieved literary fame at age twenty-four with his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (1988), which was a major critical and commercial success. He then published Wonder Boys (1995), another bestseller, which was mad...more

More about Michael Chabon...

Books by Michael Chabon

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About Maps and Legends

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

Quotes from Maps and Legends

“Telling the truth when the truth matters most is almost always a frightening prospect. If a writer doesn't give away secrets, his own or those of the people he loves; if she doesn't court disapproval, reproach, and general wrath, whether of friends, family, or party apparatchiks; if the writer submits his work to an internal censor long before anyone else can get their hands on it, the result is pallid, inanimate, a lump of earth.” — 9 people liked it

“All literature, highbrow or low, from the Aeneid onward, is fan fiction....Through parody and pastiche, allusion and homage, retelling and reimagining the stories that were told before us and that we have come of age loving--amateurs--we proceed, seeking out the blank places in the map that our favorite writers, in their greatness and negligence, have left for us, hoping to pass on to our own readers--should we be lucky enough to find any--some of the pleasure that we ourselves have taken in the stuff that we love: to get in on the game. All novels are sequels; influence is bliss.” — 5 people liked it

More quotes…

title link	preview: Maps and Legends
avg rating	preview: Maps and Legends Goodreads rating: 3.65 (2489 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1844499.Maps_and_Legends?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328694310l/1844499.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1844499.Maps_and_Legends?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Maps and Legends by Michael Chabon[/url]

Maps and Legends

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website