Maps & Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands (P.S.)

Michael Chabon's sparkling first book of nonfiction 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 favor of a wide-ranging affection. His own fiction, meanwhile, is explored from the perspective of personal history.