Maps and Legends Book

As well as being responsible for McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, a truly excellent literary periodical, Dave Eggers' (author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius amongst other novels) McSweeney's publishing house also releases a few, usually exceptionally good, books each year. Michael Chabon's Maps & Legends is one such book.

Maps & Legends is Chabon's first foray into book-length nonfiction and contains sixteen essays, some of which have been previously published. Chabon himself has described Maps & Legends as "a love song in sixteen parts" - the book offers a series of linked essays in praise of reading and writing, with subjects ranging from ghost stories to comic books, Sherlock Holmes to Cormac McCarthy. As well as speaking out powerfully in defence of genre fiction, Chabon argues energetically for a return to the thrilling, chilling origins of storytelling and "rejecting the false walls around serious literature in favour of a wide-ranging affection." A tremendously entertaining treatise on why books matter, Maps & Legends is written with Chabon's characteristic verve and wit and is a wonderful collection of thought provoking essays.