Maps and Legends

A collection of essays on books and why they matter by the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer of ‘The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay’ and ‘The Yiddish Policemen’s Union’.‘Maps and Legends’ is a love song in 16 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 around 'serious' literature in favour of a wide-ranging affection. His own fiction, meanwhile, is explored from the perspective of personal history: post-collegiate desperation…