Conversations With Michael Chabon

Since the publication of his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, launched him to fame, Michael Chabon (b. 1963) has become one of contemporary literature's most acclaimed novelists by pursuing his singular vision across all boundaries of genre and medium. A firm believer that reading even the most challenging literature should be a fundamentally pleasurable experience, Chabon has produced an astonishingly diverse body of work that includes detective novels, weird tales of horror, alternate history science fiction, and rollicking chronicles of swashbuckling adventure alongside tender coming-ofage stories, sprawling social novels, and narratives of intense introspection. Uniting them all is Chabon's utterly distinct prose style--exuberant and graceful, sometimes ironic but never cynical. His work has earned accolades ranging from the Pulitzer Prize to science fiction's Hugo and Nebula Awards. Conversations with Michael Chabon collects eighteen revealing interviews with the renowned author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, and other much-admired works. Spanning nearly twenty years and drawn from science fiction fan magazines and literary journals alike, these interviews shed new light on the central concerns of Chabon's fiction, including the importance of dismantling the false divide between literary and lowbrow, his evolving relationship to Jewish culture and literature, the unique properties of male friendship, and the complexities of race in contemporary America. These interviews are essential reading for anyone seeking a better understanding of the life and work of an author who has been instrumental in defining the landscape of contemporary American fiction.

Analyzes the author's novels and presents commentary on his life and works, viewing his career as bridging the gap between literary and popular culture.

Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) currently reigns in the literary world as one of the most critically decorated and popular authors of the last fifty years. Perhaps best known as the writer of the Harvey, Eisner, and World Fantasy-award-winning DC/Vertigo series, The Sandman, Gaiman quickly became equally renowned in literary circles for works such as Neverwhere, Coraline, American Gods, as well as the Newbery and Carnegie Medal-winning The Graveyard Book. For adults, for children, for the comics reader to the viewer of the BBC's Doctor Who, Gaiman's writing has crossed the borders of virtually all media and every language, making him a celebrity on a worldwide scale. The interviews presented here span the length of his career, beginning with his first formal interview by the BBC at the age of seven and ending with a new, unpublished interview held in 2017. They cover topics as wide and varied as a young Gaiman's thoughts on Scientology and managing anger, learning the comics trade from Alan Moore, and being on the clock virtually 24/7. What emerges is a complicated picture of a man who seems fully assembled from the start of his career, but only came to feel comfortable in his own skin and voice far later in life. The man who brought Morpheus from the folds of his imagination into the world shares his dreams and aspirations from different points in his life, including informing readers where he plans to take them next.

For well over a quarter of a century, Gardner Dozois has been defining the field with his annual selection of the very best of recently published science fiction. Every year he showcases truly exceptional contemporary writing, both by undisputed masters of the genre and outstanding up-and-coming writers. Comprising thirty-three fantastic stories by authors of the calibre of Paolo Bacigalupi, James S. A. Corey, Ann Leckie, Paul McAuley and Ian McDonald, and including, as ever, Dozois' illuminating summation of the year in science fiction and his extensive recommended reading guide, this year's collection is better than ever. Voted Year's Best Anthology by the readers of Locus magazine an unparalleled eighteen times, Dozois's annual selection has become the definitive must-read anthology for both devoted sci-fi fans and newcomers to SF.

In the new millennium, what secrets lay beyond the far reaches of the universe? What mysteries belie the truths we once held to be self evident? The world of science fiction has long been a porthole into the realities of tomorrow, blurring the line between life and art. Now, in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Third Annual Collection, the very best SF authors explore ideas of a new world. This venerable collection brings together award-winning authors and masters of the field. With an extensive recommended reading guide and a summation of the year in science fiction, this annual compilation of short stories has become the definitive must-read anthology for all science fiction fans and readers interested in breaking into the genre.

Fully revised and updated—the national bestselling communication skills guide that will help you achieve personal and professional success one conversation at a time. The master teacher of positive change through powerful communication, Susan Scott wants you to succeed. To do that, she explains, you must transform everyday conversations at work and at home with effective ways to get your message across—and get what you want. In this guide, which includes a workbook and The Seven Principles of Fierce Conversations, Scott teaches you how to: • Overcome barriers to meaningful communication • Expand and enrich relationships with colleagues, friends, and family • Increase clarity and improve understanding • Handle strong emotions—on both sides of the table • Connect with colleagues, customers and family at a deep level Includes a Foreword by Ken Blanchard, the bestselling co-author of The One Minute Manager

Gabriel Garcia Marquez in Retrospect gathers fifteen essays by noted scholars in the fields of Latin American literature, politics, and theater. The volume offers broad overviews of the Colombian author’s total body of work, along with closer looks at some of his acknowledged masterpieces. The Nobel laureate’s cultural contexts and influences, his variety of themes, and his formidable legacy (Hispanic, U.S., world-wide) all come up for consideration. New readings of One Hundred Years of Solitude are further complemented by fresh, stimulating, highly detailed examinations of his later novels (Chronicle of a Death Foretold, The General in His Labyrinth, Of Love and Other Demons) and stories (Strange Pilgrims). Further attention is focused on “Gabo’s” labors as journalist and as memoirist (Living to Tell the Tale), and to his sometime relationships with the cinema and the stage. Reactions to his enormous stature on the part of younger writers, including recent signs of backlash, are also given thoughtful scrutiny. Feminist and ecocritical interpretations, plus lively discussions of Gabo’s artful use of humor, character’s names, and even cuisine, are to be found here as well. In the wake of García Márquez’s passing away in 2014, this collection of essays serves as a fitting tribute to one of the world’s greatest literary figures of the twentieth century.

Bringing together a variety of scholarly voices, this book argues for the necessity of understanding the important role literature plays in crystallizing the ideologies of the oppressed, while exploring the necessarily racialized character of utopian thought in American culture and society. Utopia in everyday usage designates an idealized fantasy place, but within the interdisciplinary field of utopian studies, the term often describes the worldviews of non-dominant groups when they challenge the ruling order. In a time when white supremacy is reasserting itself in the US and around the world, there is a growing need to understand the vital relationship between race and utopia as a resource for resistance. Utopian literature opens up that relationship by envisioning and negotiating the prospect of a better future while acknowledging the brutal past. The collection fills a critical gap in both literary studies, which has largely ignored the issue of race and utopia, and utopian studies, which has said too little about race.

This book is concerned with the “impious” Holocaust fictions of four contemporary Jewish American novelists. It argues that their work should not be seen as insensitive, but rather as explorations of various forms of renewal.

Greil Marcus once said to an interviewer, “There is an infinite amount of meaning about anything, and I free associate.” For more than four decades, Marcus has explored the connections among figures, sounds, and events in culture, relating unrelated points of departure, mapping alternate histories and surprising correspondences. He is a unique and influential voice in American letters. Marcus was born in 1945 in San Francisco. In 1968 he published his first piece, a review of Magic Bus: The Who on Tour, in Rolling Stone, where he became the magazine’s first records editor. Renowned for his ongoing “Real Life Top Ten” column, Marcus has been a writer for a number of magazines and websites, and is the author and editor of over fifteen books. His critique is egalitarian: no figure, object, or event is too high, low, celebrated, or obscure for an inquiry into the ways in which our lives can open outward, often unexpectedly. In Conversations with Greil Marcus, Marcus discuses in lively, wide-ranging interviews his books and columns as well as his critical methodology and broad approach to his material, signaled by a generosity of spirit leavened with aggressive critical standards.

Telling Stories, Talking Craft is a collection of fifteen conversations with some of the finest contemporary fiction writers. These distinguished authors discuss their lives and their craft in candid, thought-provoking interviews from the pages of Sycamore Review, Purdue University’s international journal of literature, opinion and the arts.

Conversations with Jonathan Lethem collects fourteen interviews, conducted over a decade and a half, with the Brooklyn-born author of such novels as Girl in Landscape, Motherless Brooklyn, The Fortress of Solitude, Chronic City, and many others. Winner of the National Book Critics’ Circle Award, Lethem (b. 1964) covers a wide range of subjects, from what it means to incorporate genre into literature, to the impact of the death of his mother on his life and work, to his being a permanent “sophomore on leave” from Bennington College, as well as his flight from Brooklyn to California and its lasting effect on his fiction. Lethem also reveals the many literary and pop culture influences that have informed his writing life. Readers will find Lethem as charming and generous and intelligent as his work. His examination of what it means to live a creative life will reverberate and enlighten scholars and fans alike. His thoughts on science fiction, intellectual property, literary realism, genre, movies, and rock ’n’ roll are articulated with elán throughout the collection, as are his comments on his own development as a craftsman.

Examining a wide range of comics and graphic novels – including works by creators such as Will Eisner, Leela Corman, Neil Gaiman, Art Spiegelman, Sarah Glidden and Joe Sacco – this book explores how comics writers and artists have tackled major issues of Jewish identity and culture. With chapters written by leading and emerging scholars in contemporary comic book studies, Visualizing Jewish Narrative highlights the ways in which Jewish comics have handled such topics as: ·Biography, autobiography, and Jewish identity ·Gender and sexuality ·Genre – from superheroes to comedy ·The Holocaust ·The Israel-Palestine conflict ·Sources in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish myth Visualizing Jewish Narrative also includes a foreword by Danny Fingeroth, former editor of the Spider-Man line and author of Superman on the Couch and Disguised as Clark Kent..

Michael Chabon’s America: Magical Words, Secret Worlds, and Sacred Spaces is the first comprehensive scholarly collection analyzing the work of acclaimed, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon. At its core, the book demonstrates how Chabon uses a broad range of styles and genres, including detective and comic book fiction and essays and other works of nonfiction, to get at the heart of defining the American experience. As a result, Michael Chabon’s America provides context and exploration for understanding the author’s work from cultural, historical, and stylistic perspectives by scholars from five continents, revealing Chabon’s deep global impact.

Michael Chabon, author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Manhood for Amateurs and Moonglow, returns with a collection of heartfelt, humorous and insightful essays on the meaning of fatherhood. You are born into a family and those are your people, and they know you and they love you and if you are lucky they even, on occasion, manage to understand you. And that ought to be enough. But it is never enough What are you allowed to talk about with your children? When to step in with advice, when to let them make their own mistakes? It's more complicated than you think. Somehow you muddle through. In this heartfelt, humorous and wise book, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon attempts to weigh in on difficult conversations with his children, on everything from texting girls to death. But it is when he hangs back that he catches them transforming into their own people. What emerges is a father's deep respect for his children's passions and for their bravery in the face of conformity. Whether you know the joy and struggles of being a father, or were shaped by one, you will find a home in these stunning essays.

Pulitzer Prizewinning author Michael Chabon has emerged as one of the most daring writers of American fiction in the post-Pynchon era. Joseph Dewey examines how Chabon’s narratives have sought to bring together the defining elements of the two principal expressions of the American narrative that his generation inherited: the formal extravagances of postmodernism and the compelling storytelling of psychological realism. Like the audacious, self-conscious excesses of Pynchon and his postmodern disciples, Dewey argues, Chabon’s fictions are extravagant, often ironic, experiments into form animated by dense verbal and linguistic energy. As with the probing texts of psychological realism by Updike and his faithful, Chabon’s fictions center on keenly drawn, recognizable characters caught up in familiar, heartbreaking dilemmas; enthralling storylines compelled by suspense, enriched with suggestive symbols; and humane themes about love and death, work and family, and sexuality and religion. Evolving over three decades, this hybrid fiction has made Chabon not only one of the most widely read composers of serious fiction of his guild but one of the most critically respected writers as well, thus positioning Chabon as a representative voice of the generation. Dewey’s study, the first to examine the full breadth of Chabon’s fiction from his landmark debut novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, to his controversial 2012 best seller, Telegraph Avenue, places Chabon’s fictional sensibility, for all its hipness, within what has been the defining theme of American literature since the provocative romances of Hawthorne and Melville: the anxious tension between escape and engagement; between the sweet, centripetal pull of the redemptive imagination as a splendid, if imperfect, engine of retreat and the harsh, centrifugal pull of real life itself, recklessly deformed by the crude handiwork of surprise and chance and unable to coax even the simplest appearance of logic.

Anthony Simon Laden explores the kind of reasoning we engage in when we live together: when we are responsive to others and neither commanding nor deferring to them. He argues for a new, social picture of the activity of reasoning, in which reasoning is a species of conversation—social, ongoing, and governed by a set of characteristic norms.