Michael Chabon | Observer

By Molly Fischer 9/11/12 8:14pm

You’re Gonna Meet Some Gentle People There: The Idealistic World of Michael Chabon’s Bay Area Novel Telegraph Avenue

Michael Chabon has made himself a literary champion of commercial pleasures. His fiction in recent years has touched the same nerve as nostalgic pop favorites: detective novels, comic books, kung fu movies, soul music. And with Mr. Chabon’s new novel, the retail romance Telegraph Avenue (Harper, 480 pp., $27.99), this principle reaches a certain literal endpoint. Not just old-fashioned commercial entertainment but old-fashioned commerce itself—the scrappy, cozy, locally owned sort—becomes the object of his underdog affection. Read More

By Foster Kamer 9/14/11 12:14pm

Brilliantly Uncomfortable Moments in Social Media

Michael Chabon Gave Ayelet Waldman HPV, Which He Got From His First Wife

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, indeed. You now know more than you ever needed to about celebrated novelist Michael Chabon. Read More

By Emily Witt 7/01/11 8:56am

Broadway

Ayelet Waldman and Michael Chabon Writing 826 Valencia Musical

Ayelet Waldman and Michael Chabon are working on a musical about McSweeney’s non-profit 826 Valencia’s Superhero Supply Store in Park Slope. It’s true, Ms. Waldman told us! It will be called The Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company. Michael Mayer, of American Idiot and Spring Awakening will direct; Peter Lerman, a young up-and-coming musical talent, will compose; Read More

By Daniel D'Addario 3/08/11 7:05pm

television

HBO Adds Chabon and Waldman to Their List of Boldface Names

HBO’s added another series to a very crowded and diverse development slate–married couple Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman’s Hobgoblin, a drama about magicians battling Hitler. The network’s garnered a great deal of press lately for big-name projects under development, which often rhyme with past successes: In the Sex and the City vein, Lena Dunham’s Read More

By Nate Freeman 1/13/11 11:24pm

Recovery

Michael Chabon Waxes Eloquent on Obama's Tuscon Speech

President Obama’s address to the nation, delivered last night from the Tuscon, Arizona hospital where Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is recovering from Saturday’s tragic shooting, has been lauded basically across the board.

The Atlantic published the reaction of Pulitzer Prize-winning Park Slope novelist Michael Chabon, however, and he voiced his initial lack of enthusiasm Read More

By Leon Neyfakh 7/21/09 9:02pm

Hey, Look at All These Novels to Read!

Fall is coming.

In publishing, this signals the start of a season that many believe has the best chance of any in recent memory to redeem the industry after one of its darkest years, and to show that, even in 2009, big, beautiful hit books are still possible.

Many publishers are saying their fall catalogs Read More

By Leon Neyfakh 7/10/09 7:48pm

Ladies and Germs, Your Summer ’09 Status Galleys!

If you need to be told what status galleys are, chances are you’ve never had the pleasure of owning one. Or, if you need a reminder, here’s the piece we did last summer. Basically the term refers to an advance reader’s copy of a highly anticipated book that hasn’t been published yet. If you Read More

By Jason Horowitz 10/30/08 5:04pm

Erica Jong Tells Italians Obama Loss ‘Will Spark the Second American Civil War. Blood Will Run in the Streets’

It seems that the final days of the presidential campaign have made Erica Jong and her friends more than a little anxious.

A few days ago, Jong, the author and self-described feminist, gave an interview to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the choicest bits of which were brought to my attention Read More

By Leon Neyfakh 6/03/08 12:39pm

Pure Imagination

The New York Times ran an incendiary letter over the weekend, written by a 17-year-old from Birmingham, Ala., named Alec Niedenthal, who wanted to tell the editors of the Sunday Book Review that the future of literature belongs to him. Mr. Niedenthal, who graduated from high school last week and is preparing to attend Read More

By Matt Haber 4/08/08 7:23pm

The Amazing Adventures of Pulitzer Winners

Yesterday was a proud day for the winners of the 2008 Pulitzer Prizes. But after the last of the champagne goes flat and their backs stop stinging from all that slapping, what do they do with themselves?

Comment on websites that make passing references to their work, of course. On Friday, Slate ran an Read More

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You’re Gonna Meet Some Gentle People There: The Idealistic World of Michael Chabon’s Bay Area Novel Telegraph Avenue

Michael Chabon Gave Ayelet Waldman HPV, Which He Got From His First Wife

Ayelet Waldman and Michael Chabon Writing 826 Valencia Musical

HBO Adds Chabon and Waldman to Their List of Boldface Names

Michael Chabon Waxes Eloquent on Obama's Tuscon Speech

Hey, Look at All These Novels to Read!

Ladies and Germs, Your Summer ’09 Status Galleys!

Erica Jong Tells Italians Obama Loss ‘Will Spark the Second American Civil War. Blood Will Run in the Streets’

Pure Imagination

The Amazing Adventures of Pulitzer Winners

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