<p>A brilliant, idiosyncratic collection of introductions and afterwords (plus some liner notes) by <em>New York Times </em>bestselling and Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Chabon—“one of contemporary literature’s most gifted prose stylists” (Michiko Kakutani, <em>New York Times</em>).</p><p>In <em>Bookends</em>, Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Chabon offers a compilation of pieces about literature—age-old classics as well as his own—that presents a unique look into his literary origins and influences, the books that shaped his taste and formed his ideas about writing and reading. </p><p>Chabon asks why anyone would write an introduction, or for that matter, read one. His own daughter Rose prefers to skip them. Chabon&apos;s answer is simple and simultaneously profound: "a hope of bringing pleasure for the reader." Likewise, afterwords—they are all about shared pleasure, about the "pure love" of a work of art that has inspired, awakened, transformed the reader. Ultimately, this thought-provoking compendium is a series of love letters and thank-you notes, unified by the simple theme of the shared pleasure of discovery, whether it&apos;s the boyhood revelation of the most important story in Chabon&apos;s life (Ray Bradbury&apos;s "The Rocket Man"); a celebration of "the greatest literary cartographer of the planet Mars" (Edgar Rice Burroughs, with his character John Carter); a reintroduction to a forgotten master of ghost stories (M. R. James, ironically "the happiest of men"); the recognition that the worlds of Wes Anderson&apos;s films are reassembled scale models of our own broken reality (as is all art); Chabon&apos;s own rude awakening from the muse as he writes his debut novel, <em>The Mysteries of Pittsburgh;</em> or a playful parody of lyrical interpretation in the liner notes for Mark Ronson&apos;s <em>Uptown Special</em>, the true purpose of which, Chabon insists, is to "spread the gospel of sensible automotive safety and maintenance practices." </p><p>Galaxies away from academic or didactic, <em>Bookends </em>celebrates wonder—and like the copy of <em>The Phantom Tollbooth </em>handed to young Michael by a friend of his father he never saw again—it is a treasured gift.</p>