I saw some books at lunch that piqued my curiosity. Anybody read them and got a review?

The new Chabon book The Yiddish Policeman's Union.

Tracey Chevalier's new novel about Wm. Blake. Burning Bright.

Kiki Strike

The new Chabon book The Yiddish Policeman's Union.

Saw a positive review of this in Entertainment Weekly. Looked interesting in an alternate-history kind of way. Plus, detectiving! Chabon read up on a whole bunch of noir authors like Chandler and Hammett before writing the novel.

NY Times Book Review also had a positive review of the new Chabon. I know Mrs. Industries is super-excited. What's Kiki Strike? The delivery service business getting extra-oppressive? Or has she joined the military?

Kiki Strike kicks serious ass. Steph L. "Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear." Feb 13, 2007 12:47:24 pm PST

kiki strike was good fun

I finished the Chabon about a week ago. I got it from the library, and I'm conisdering buying it so I can have it with me all the time. I really enjoyed it, but I didn't quite have the time or paitence to appreciate the way I think it should probably be appreciated.

It seemed that the first two-thirds of the book were focused on character development and the outline of a plot. The plot rushed forward rather quickly during the last third. I'm not that familiar with the noir genre or detective stories in general, so maybe that was intentional. I can't tell you if it's true to the genre, but it felt like exactly what I would expect noir to be.

Chabon's writing is just gorgeous. Metaphors and similes were just pouring out at every turn, and I could feel the air and see the quality of the light. It was so dense and rich and flavorful. And then I wanted him to stop with the prose and get on with the story.

Yiddish words and phrases are used heavily, and the meaning is pretty clear by context. The use of Yiddish gave me a strange double vision feel of watching this segregated culture from the outside, but, by being outsider, I understood their feelings of isolation and exclusion from the world.

I loved Landsman, in that way that made me want to kick him a few times, strictly for his own good.

Overall, I don't think I would recommend it for people who need a lot of action in their plots, but I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who wants to get to know characters, warts and all.

The new Chabon book The Yiddish Policeman's Union.

I liked it a lot. It felt like a real alternate universe, and a pretty interesting one. There were definitely times when I was thinking "There's no way this is based in reality... is it?" I do agree that there's a lot of writing around the plot, but part of that, I feel, is necessary to make the world come across.

Basically, I'd put it slightly below Kavalier and Clay because, well, it's not about comic book people and NY, and it's a mystery (not my favorite genre). But I read it due to faith in Chabon, and I was not disappointed. By contrast, I am not currently loving Mysteries of Pittsburgh which is disappointing - Chabon novel with back-cover comparisons to Catcher in the Rye and On The Road felt like it had promise. But... eh. I don't know if I'll get around to finishing it.

Have you read Wonder Boys, Gris?

I think you'd like that a lot. It's much better than Mysteries of Pittsburgh.

There were definitely times when I was thinking "There's no way this is based in reality... is it?"

It is, apparently. At least the basic idea.

Wonder Boys was so fricking hilarious. At least if you've taken creative writing.