Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee
Jerry Seinfeld’s web series is a snazzy new vehicle for his relatable brand of observational comedy. Genuinely funny conversations with fellow comedians like Larry David, Alec Baldwin and Ricky Gervais.
Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author riffs on family, race, politics and music in his sprawling, charming new novel that chronicles the demise of a neighborhood record store in Northern California.
Yale University Press
Available online
Exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through 1 September
After I ooh and aah over the bold colours and steel-plated cover of “Superheroes,” I next notice the glossy pages which smell just like the trading cards I remember as a kid. Those were of superheroes, too, and they captured the frames of the big summer popcorn movies where capes were the norm and nothing could be bold or bright enough. Appropriately, Michael Chabon pens the foreword to this very cool book. He tells us about a cautionary tale he heard as a child in Sunday school – about how a young boy thought he was Superman, tied a red towel around his neck, and jumped off the roof. But really, nothing can make a true comic book fan be deterred from soaking up the fantasy late at night, under the covers, the battery in the flashlight growing weaker by the minute. The glossy pages here are not only a companion piece to the exhibit at the Met, but a thick slice of evidence as to how these fantastical characters inspire and cross-over into the world of fashion. Of particular note, folks like Giorgio Armani, Rossella Jardini, Catherine Malandrino and John Galliano. I must admit, to look at the artwork from the original comics, then to the production stills from film and television adaptations, and finally onto the runways of the world…this is a very groovy dialogue that is taking place, and one that not a lot of people are actually talking about.
McSweeney’s
In shops on 1 May
Puliter Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon (“The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay”) brings us his first work of non-fiction in this collection of essays about reading and writing, but mostly about reading. The book starts with an essay about the modern short story, which segues into his thoughts on fiction in general and in particular, genre fiction, as Chabon takes us through what he calls the bookstore ghetto where Science Fiction lives in a separate neighborhood from Romance, which likewise lives in a separate neighborhood from Mystery, etc. Chabon maintains that only established writers can break through these barriers and end up in the Literature section regardless of their genre. Chabon can arguably be credited as this generation’s greatest writer of genre fiction, often working many genres into his novels. In the essays that follow, he further explores his theory by using examples from Nabakov, Arthur Conan Doyle, Philip Pullman to Cormac McCarthy, and many others. As someone who has read all of Michael Chabon’s novels and many of his short stories, it was fun to read about the inspirations and ideas that go into his books; even an essay about Norse Mythology, gives one insight into his Young Adults tome “Summerland”. The latter essays in the book are more specifically about Chabon’s own novels, and thematically tie very nicely into the earlier essays. I’m not sure that this book is a “must read” for anyone unfamiliar with Chabon’s work or anyone uninterested in the writing process, but if you are an avid reader like me, it will certainly give you a solid list of books and authors to check out in the future. In the meantime, I await Chabon’s next great novel.
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