Bookends

Description

Why would anyone read an introduction? Michael Chabon will convince you. In Bookends: Collected Intros and Outros, published in 2019, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist gathers his own introductions, afterwords, and liner notes from across his career — and proves the form can be literature in its own right.

Here are Chabon’s pieces on age-old classics and contemporary favorites, alongside liner notes and occasional writing, each showcasing the prose that made him famous: erudite, playful, and deeply felt. It is a map of one writer’s reading life — and an education in how to love books out loud. His piece on Sherlock Holmes alone is worth the price — erudite, personal, and unexpectedly moving.

For Chabon fans and essay lovers. The rare collection you’ll read straight through — then lend, then buy again. A book about loving books, by one of the great lovers of books.

Introductions worth reading for their own sake

Why would anyone write an introduction — or read one? In Bookends: Collected Intros and Outros, published in 2019, Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Michael Chabon answers that question with a collection of his own: introductions, afterwords, and liner notes gathered from across his career.

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Hailed as “a brilliant, idiosyncratic collection” by his publisher, the book gathers Chabon’s pieces on literature — age-old classics as well as contemporary favorites — alongside liner notes and other occasional writing. Each piece showcases the prose style that made Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times call him “one of contemporary literature’s most gifted prose stylists.”

For Chabon fans, it’s a guided tour through the books and records that shaped one of America’s great storytellers. For everyone else, it’s proof that the pages before page one can be the best part of the book.

Perfect for

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• Admirers of Michael Chabon and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.
• Readers who love essays about books, reading, and the writing life.
• Anyone who never skips the introduction.

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A slim, sparkling companion to a remarkable literary career.