Guest Post: Melody on Telegraph Avenue, Part II

I'd like to thank Melody from Fingers & Prose, for submitting this guest post about the real Telegraph Avenue. If you don't already know her wonderful and varied book blog, I'd encourage you to take a look!  I meant to run this last week, but I am afraid I forgot.  But it was a fortunate mistake, in that it's really more appropriate to run this week, which is the wrap-up discussion for Michael Chabon's forthcoming novel, Telegraph Avenue, in which that eponymous street ends the book at center stage, perhaps the most important and consistent character in the book. 

A Brief History of Telegraph Avenue (courtesy of a jaunt through Wikipedia)

The Fox Theatre is located on the southern
end of Telegraph Avenue (photo credit)

The actual naming and forming of Telegraph Avenue goes back quite far (for California.)  In 1859, a telegraph line was constructed in Oakland that followed the route of the present day Telegraph Avenue.  The streets which ran alongside it were renamed The Telegraph Road.  Ten years later, Oakland's first horsecar line was built along this road, and it eventually extended to the UC campus in Berkeley.  In time, the horsecar line became an electric streetcar line; the ease of transportation stimulated growth and development along the avenue. 

Over the next century [roughly], the neighborhoods along Telegraph began to develop and grow.  When the Sather Gate was completed in 1913, Telegraph Avenue and Allston Way became a spot for student rallies. It took on added significance as a 'Hyde Park' in the mid-1930s.

Further additions to the university campus and transportation infrastructure brought Telegraph Avenue through into the 1960s, when the Berkeley end became the site of many protests and riots.  This tumult caused the area to be known as a symbol of the counterculture of the time.

The large student (and otherwise transient) population has been joined more recently by large Korean, Ethiopian, and Eritrean populations, stimulating the eclectic assortment of restaurants and other businesses.

Rally to oppose military conscription: Berkeley, September 1940

A website devoted to the area says "Telegraph is renown for its cultural diversity."  Not only is the area packed with unique and ethnic restaurants, but the streets are lined with art murals and craft vendors.  From book and record shops to tattoo parlors and smoke shops, there are plenty of interesting things to spice up the more common mix of stores.

There are many sites devoted to different aspects of Telegraph Avenue, showing that it truly is an area that has made an impact on many people. (I enjoyed looking at the photography of Joe Samberg--including the b&w photo below--some of the subjects are controversial, but there were others that provided an interesting look at the political rallies and confrontations of days past.)  It is quite apparent why this area would stimulate an author's imagination.  Learning about the area has been fascinating; actually living there must add a whole other [living, breathing] dimension.

courtesy of Joe Samberg Photography

We're Gonna Rock Down To Telegraph Avenue: Part the Last, or Brokeland

So this week is the final installment in the Michael Chabon readalong, and I have to say that I am feeling a little bereft, both at the thought of the dissolving of the fellowship (that sounds vaguely Tolkien-like) and at the closing of the book. I am grateful to HarperCollins, Mr. Chabon himself, and his editor, for approving this unprecedented ARC readalong and providing the ARCs to all of us.

Part V, Brokeland, seemed a little more disjointed to me that the other sections of the book, with the possible exception of part I, where I was still having trouble keeping characters straight.  It starts out in media res, and while I think that works for the most part in the rest of the book, I wanted something more directly picking up where part IV left off.  I think it's a testament to how much I've come to feel for Chabon's characters that I don't want to miss out on the important things in their lives, so it's a little frustrating to learn that so many of the conversations I wanted to be privy to have occurred offstage.

I wasn't expecting a happy ending from Chabon, but what I got was an ending that was both realistic and satisfying in equal measure, and that says something, I suppose.  I won't go too much into the particulars of the plot, other than to acknowledge how good I thought the hospital scene and the final scene, up in the second floor room, were.

I didn't have particular expectations about Telegraph Avenue before I started it, other than I thought it would be fun to do a readalong with a not-yet-published novel, but I'm so glad that that is how I came to the book.  Without a group to discuss it each week,  to pick apart the good, the bad, & the extraordinary, I might have given up on it.  I don't usually like to work that hard on my fiction, but Chabon made me reach and stretch to accommodate his book and I think I'm a better reader for it. Now that I'm on the other side of it, I find my mind going back to those characters and wanting to live in their world a little longer.

It's impossible to really summarize a book like this one, where the plot points meander or even happen offstage and where the characters are so varied and rich, or where the location becomes a character in and of itself--or maybe even a metaphor for what Chabon is doing.  So I'll just share with you the short blurb I wrote for something we call a "shelf tag" in my bookstore, where it will become part of my shelf in the Staff Favorites section:

The best fiction reflects not only how the world is, but what its reality could be. Chabon's latest (and greatest) novel, while ostensibly about race in the 21st century, is really a cross-section of America itself and a peek into the real American Dream. Chock full of pop cultural references that will keep the curious reader Googling, and imbued with the creole rhythms of music from the world over, it shows that our differences don't always have to divide us and that the "apartheid of consciousness" that pervades our nation can, in fact, be overcome.

I'll conclude, as usual with some of my favorite passages, but first a question: was anybody really surprised to learn the name of the new tenant next to the King of Bling? I smiled rather broadly when I read that.

"There was nothing a man couldn't do with three thousand dollars and a suitcase full of canned tuna fish and pregnancy bras."

"Valletta rocked back. Wavering in her resolve. Knowing she should make good on her threat and go, but trained by the Pavlovian bell of love to confuse contempt with affection and indifference with reserve."  God, so true of so many women I know.

The whole metaphor of whites & blacks and the pedestal of the world = backs of elephants and a turtle (which is either Mayan or from Terry Pratchett, or possibly both).  It's too long to excerpt here, but the concluding sentence is both defeatist and humorous: "It just turned out that a tower of elephants and turtles was no way to try to hold up a world."

"Nat might have felt ashamed of the self-pity in which he currently wallowed, if self-pity knew any shame."

"'Pissing on a zeppelin,' Nat said, regretting bitterly the loss of this opportunity. 'Why didn't I think of that?'"

If you're following this readalong and are intrigued by our discussion, please consider pre-ordering your book here.

Please note that if the Linky List closes before you've had a chance to post, you should just add a link to your post to the comments section.

P. S. The guest post I promised last week from Melody went up this week--it's the post that is one newer than this one, or just click here. 

We're Gonna Rock Down To Telegraph Avenue: Readalong Parts III & IV

Welcome to the pre-publication Telegraph Avenue readalong! This week we'll be tackling sections III, A Bird of Wide Experience, and IV, Return to Forever.  If you're joining in for the first time today, you may want to consider checking out our discussions of sections I and II from previous weeks.

Okay, so I'm just gonna go ahead and say it: I was at least halfway through A Bird of Wide Experience before I realized that the entire section was only one sentence long.  Sure, there were a few semi-colons; but really, it was a section that would do an author like Jose Saramago, William Faulkner, or Cormac McCarthy proud.  I'm not sure how long it would have taken me to notice the sentence-long section if I hadn't been looking for a stopping place in my reading so I could leave for work!  The writing is beautiful ("If sorrow is the consequence of pattern spoiled, then the bird was grieving..."), and getting the literal bird's-eye view of all of the characters and their environs was a real treat.  I loved getting the sensory experiences of Fifty-Eight, the liberated African Grey parrot as it winged its way over Telegraph Avenue, connecting the myriad characters, locations, and storylines in one fell swoop.

Sidebar: African Greys are fascinating and devastatingly intelligent animals.  I lived with one for about year when my husband's daughter and her menagerie shared housespace with us.  I want to see more of this Fifty-Eight.

Moving on to part four, we see Archy at his best and worst. I completely cringed at his lashing out at Julie & Titus, and then my heart broke wide open for him with his execution of the funeral (not to mention the near-misses). Damnit, I don't want to feel sympathy for this guy, but Chabon somehow is capable of making me feel it nonetheless.  I may not love Archy, but I have a soft spot for imperfect characters whose endless foibles seem to result from one bad decision and then cascade from there.

Luther Stallings: Damn, but I thought he might be some kind of lynchpin around which much of this story would revolve, directly or indirectly. Now the plot thickens and I find myself bizarrely hoping that somehow he *will* find the money to produce his last film. Kickin' it old school, indeed.

Titus & Julie: Damn, boys. Fools, the both of you. Tailing cars, eavesdropping, misunderstanding, petty thefts, all of which, no doubt, will come back to bite them in the you-know-where.

Gwen: Getting her own back at the inquest. Life is full of reversals, but I'm perversely more interested in her personal life and how she is going to deal with the cheating man-child husband, all on the eve of giving birth.

Aviva: Trying to get through to Archy, trying to convince him that her devotion to midwifery is strong enough to risk imprisonment, should things come to that.  I like this woman and I wish we got to see a lot more of her. Her policy of "what do I know about being black?"  [or insert "other"ness of choice here] is not a bad repurposing of the worn out adage about walking a mile in someone's shoes.

Cochise Jones and the leisure suit of destiny.  Cracked me up. 

Finally, some choice passages:

"[The Mary Janes] had the charm of cement and the elegance of cinder blocks, but they held her feet without pain or structural failure, and it seemed to her that the librarian-nun vibe they exuded was also not incompatible with the kicking of ass."

"Titus was about to say 'It's your father' but, at the last instant, realized it might sound like he was saying Luther Stallings was shit. When, to the contrary, Luther Stallings at one time had stood in full possession of a definite article, not to mention two capital letters. Was most definitely The Shit."

"'But I will mention, when black folks and Jews feed a crowd, you know many chickens will die.'"

"'Seems like, I don't know. When people start looking at other people, people not like them, one thing they often end up liking about those people is their music.'"

"She had hoisted every sail to catch the rising wind of her panic; there was no telling what bleak tropic she might yet strike."

"Titus showed nothing but scorn for Archy and had never said anything remotely to the effect that he had a hole in his heart in the shape of his father, but like an astronomer with an exoplanet, Julie could infer that hole's presence from distortions in the field around Titus."

"'Black midwife standing up for herself to a bunch of white doctors, that makes it a mau-mau?'
'I don't have a problem with mau-mauing,' Nat said. 'It's a valid techinique.'
'I'm glad to hear that,' Archy said. 'Black folk been holding off on the mau-mauing lately, till we got a ruling from you.'"

Onward to part V, Brokeland, next week.  If you're enjoying our little readalong of Telegraph Avenue, please pre-order it here. It will be published in September by HarperCollins.

We're Gonna Rock Down To Telegraph Avenue: The Church of Vinyl

Are you a member of good standing in the church of vinyl? Welcome to the pre-publication discussion of Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon.  Harper Collins is sponsoring this readalong and has provided all of the participants with either digital or physical ARCs.  But if our discussion of this book sounds more amazing that you'd ever dreamed of, you can pre-order a copy of the book here.

So, would now be a good time to confess that I read part two so many weeks ago that it's mostly a dim memory.  And because I'm not always as smart as I'd like to be, I didn't pre-write my review to post back then.  So I'm mostly going to take a backseat this week and let y'all take it away.

But before I say anything about the second section of this book that just keeps growing on me, I want to mention that the lovely & charming Melody from Fingers & Prose has written something for our readalong, despite the fact that she's not participating in it.  Actually, she has written two: one of which will appear this week, and one of which will appear next week. How groovy does that make her?  Her mini-essay is the new blogpost below/after this one (or just click here), so please check it out! 

Okay, discuss: Who was cheering during the Gwen-gives-the-apology scene? Best non-apology since Anne of Green Gables. 

Cameo appearance of Obama: cool or corny?

Why don't more people have dirigibles?  I mean, obviously, aside from the dangerous combustibility.  They don't seem outrageously more dangerous than hot air balloons or the various high-intensity sports that the kids these days seem into.  (Called a zeppelin in the book, Chabon's term for the Dogpile airship is apparently used erroneously--since Zeppelin is a brand name, a manufacturer, and I somehow don't think it's become common usage the way the way Kleenex has for facial tissue.)

In other news, the characters overall are really starting to mesh for me, not just Julie, the kid I want to perpetually hug.  I love the layers--maybe because I'm also reading a book on art right now, it's influencing the way I see things--but the story is like an old oil painting, with layer upon layer of lacquer, with the darks getting darker with each layer, and the lights getting brighter, more luminous, as the canvas reflects back through the lacquer.  To the point where the craftsmanship disappears and all you're left with is a gorgeous composition.

My goodness: the whole section describing Nat's adventures frying chicken in the kitchen, whilst reminiscing of his stepmama?  Priceless.  Truly priceless.

What else did I love? I wouldn't say that I'm prepared to like Gibson Goode, but I thought his holding forth on the world of black music was very interesting. But oh, Archy, please think long and hard before you take that job offer.

 Some favorite/interesting passages:

"An apology...it was a beautiful thing, no a miracle of language. Cost you nothing and returned so richly." (in a redux from the previous section) and then, on a related note, "Her apology was, as apologies so often are, fighting words. She was sorry only that she was not sorry at all." Both of these passages are so true.

"Archy already feeling crowded enough by the marital silence that at present filled the whole vehicle, knowing perfectly well, with all the almanack sagacity the word "husband" implied, that the present silence was more portent than aftermath. A formulating stillness. That pressure drop, brooding and birdless, right before the touchdown of a tornado."

"'You got a trio," she said to Leslie, "Plus one pregnant lady in a bowling shirt."

"This was in compliance with Aviva Roth-Jaffe's official policy on outrage, which was that, even when justified, it was an ineffective tool."

"She carried her pregnancy like a football tucked into the crook of a fullback's arm, invisibly, and with aplomb.  Whereas Gwen's body was more like an Einsteinian force, warping the fabric of space-time as she moved through it."

"It was not easy, dressed in skanky b-ball shorts and a Captain EO sweatshirt with cutoff sleeves, but Archy dived down deep and hauled up all the dignity he could snap oloose from the sea bottom of his soul."

Guest Post: Melody introduces us to Telegraph Avenue

I am so pleased to introduce my first guest blogpost, courtesy of Melody, the genius behind the wonderful blog, Fingers & Prose, which is one of my favorite bookblogs. She is familiar with the part of the world circumscribing Chabon's new book, and though she's not participating in the pre-publication reading of Telegraph Avenue, she's been cheering us along the way.  This week she dug up this "tour" on the interwebs, that we might visualize the environs we're reading about.  I hope you find it as interesting as I did! 

A Tour of Telegraph Avenue, Courtesy of the Author Himself

(photo credit)

Michael Chabon wrote a bit for The Atlantic about Telegraph Avenue (both the book he wrote and the place he lives) and the unique quality of home.  After talking about his hometown (Berkeley) he asks, "Is your "hometown" only, ever, the place where you grew up?"

I love that question.  We tend to talk about our hometowns being the places we grew up, but reality is more complex...and the answer is likely to be somewhat different depending on the person.  In any case, I'm a fan of authors writing about what's near and dear to them, and this certainly seems to be the case with the forthcoming Telegraph Avenue.  Don't believe me? Get a hold of this description:

"The real Telegraph Avenue runs straight as a steel cable, changing its nature more or less completely every ten blocks or so, from the medical-marijuana souks of Oaksterdam, past the former Lamp Post bar where Bobby Seale used to hang out (now called Interplay Center, where you can "unlock the wisdom of your body"), past Section 8 housing and the site of a founding settlement of the native Ohlone people at the corner of 51st Street, past the Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library and Akwaba Braiding and a buttload of Ethiopian restaurants, ending in an august jangle at the gates of the Cal campus, and I guess that for a guy who likes hanging around the borderlands--between genres, cultures, musics, legacies, styles--the appeal of Telegraph lies in the way it reflects a local determination to find your path irrespective of boundary lines, picking up what you can, shaking off what you can, along the way. But can you claim a home in a nameless place, at the edge of a wandering border?"  (from The Atlantic)

So that's how he describes it, but what if you wanted to see more?  If your one wish happened to be that Michael Chabon would take you on a tour of this eclectic, inspiring hometown of his, where would he take you?  Fortunately for you, he's anticipated this wish, and you'll be left in agony no longer.  (Or, to be more exact, UC Berkeley has anticipated this wish and did the leg-work for you.)  Here's the itinerary:

• On and around … take in a show at the Fox Theater, dinner at Flora. 
• Check out InterPlay, former site of the Lamp Post Tavern, the Black Panther bar, wish I was still young enough to hang at the Stork Club. 
• Pick up a box of Melona creamsicles at Koreana Plaza, eat them. 
• Mourn Neldam’s. 
• Cut right on 40th to check out new/old arrivals at 1-2-3-4 Go! Records. 
• Marvel at the Houdini-esque splendor of the locking merchandise for sale at Reed Bros. 
• Go to Depot for Creative Reuse. 
• Burma Superstar! Pizzaiolo, my family’s favorite restaurant, or, depending on time of day, Bakesale Betty for a chicken sandwich. 
• Stop in at Clars Auction Gallery to see what crazy shit is for sale this week. 
• Admire the wistful fading splendor of the skin diver on the sign of Steele’s Discount Scuba. 
• Consider the possibility of revolution at the Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library. 
• Then leap on up to the campus end of things, to check in on Moe’s, Amoeba, and Shakespeare & Co. 
• If my elder son is with me, Top Dog.

Oh, don't you want to go?  And if a list of places can be so exciting and descriptive, a dose of Chabon's writing should transport you directly there.  Enjoy the ride!

(photo and text credit)

"If you ever traveled through Berkeley in the 60's, you can come back to Telegraph Avenue today and close your eyes, open them and transport yourself back in time. Telegraph Avenue will give you the feeling that time has stood still - the colorful street vendors are still in full color as are many of the locals on the street. Get yourself a tattoo or just sit outside at a cafe and watch the people - it's the best. However, Telegraph Avenue is home to some of the best book and music stores in the world - Rasputin & Amoeba as well as Cody's and Shakespeare & Co. You can even go mainstream and shop at the GAP or buy a cookie at Mrs. Fields. But, if you want a fun afternoon of colorful shopping, make a trip to Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley."

We're Gonna Rock Down To Telegraph Avenue: Dream of Cream

Where to even begin? This book has a LOT going on, so I'll start with the easy mark.  Did anybody read the epigraph and its attribution?  I think I actually snorted a beverage through my nose when I read it.  I wasn't expecting the book to have as much humor as it does, but it's not constant;  it kind of sneaks up on you.

Okay, a few things: I occasionally had trouble keeping up with the cast of characters, remembering which nickname or diminutive went with each formal name.  Did that hold true with any of you?

I was also struck with the desire to see if there were any blaxploitation films on Netflix livestreaming that I could check out.  I've never seen one, but I love the word blaxploitation.  I think it might be the unexpected "x," because I also love the word juxtaposition.

Did anybody else notice that the Harper logo on the spine of the book is not their usual one with the hand and the torch?  They swapped it out for the Black Power fist. Publishers usually aren't too keen with messing around with their logos, but I kinda love it when they do.  Subtle but good. (As an aside, I think my favorite was Knopf with Geek Love--they gave their usual Borzoi an extra leg in honor of that book.)

Also, and I'm not sure what to do with this, or if things will change in the next sections, but it seems to me that Chabon is using rather more racial stereotypes in his characters than I would have expected in a book that is ostensibly about the exploration of race in contemporary America.

Then again, maybe he's just playing around with things and all will be made clear by the end. After all, I, myself, missed a piece of racist invective in part of the dialogue the first time I read it.  Possibly because I didn't know what the phrase "conking your hair" meant, and at the time I had trouble remembering Gwen from Aviva; possibly because as person whose skin has privileged her, I've never had to be aware of that. 

But now I know what it means to conk your hair. And that when something is bangin' it's a good thing. Yes, that's a glimpse into my circumscribed life.

That being said, when I'm not confusing which characters are which, or wondering why it's the black guy and not the white guy who is afraid of having children and can't keep his bidness in his pants, I'm totally drawn in to this novel.  Never having visited California, the setting seems impossibly exotic to me.  And of course the underdog used record store vs. the megastore is one that hits uncomfortably close to home. (aside: I mean, really, who can take seriously something called a Dogpile Thang?) Then, too, there are some seriously beautiful, humorous, and/or insightful phrases in the book.

Here are some of my favorite lines/passages from the book:

"The baby, understanding perhaps that it was purely rhetorical, made no attempt to answer this question."

"Thirty years too old, twenty pounds too light, forty watts too dim..."

"From the lowest limb of a Meyer lemon, a wind chime searched without urgency for a melody to play."

"The fog had burned off, leaving only a softness, as tender as a memory from childhood, to blur the sunlight that warmed the sprawl of rosemary and purple salvia along the fragrant sidewalk and fell in shifting shafts through the branches of the monkey-puzzle tree."

"Most of all, he was tired of being a holdout, a sole survivor, the last coconut hanging on the last palm tree on the last atoll in the path of the great wave of late-modern capitalism, waiting to be hammered flat."  Holy shit, but does that feeling ever sound familiar!

Does book sound fabulous? If so, you can pre-order your copy here because it's being published in September from Harper

We're Gonna Rock Down To Telegraph Avenue: Readalong Inaugural Post

I just want y'all to know that I am a dedicated hostess for this here readalong.  Now in some circles that might be grounds for assuming that I've made cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off, at least two kinds of tea, and mini-cupcakes (or some such) because the emphasis would be on the word hostess.  Please redirect your attention to the word dedicated, for as I type, this is the view I'm looking out at: 

It's my last full day of vacation, and yet I've somehow remembered through the fog of reading, sun, & snorkeling that tomorrow is the first official post in the Telegraph Avenue readalong, which means I must figure out how to do the linky thing.  Wish me luck!

So let's talk about this book and this author and all of our hopes and dreams for the readalong, shall we?

Before I picked up Telegraph Avenue, I had only read one Michael Chabon book before--his collection of essays called Manhood for Amateurs, which I apparently never reviewed here because I read it before I had my blog.  But I rather liked it, despite not being a man.  Funny how that goes.  Somewhere in my house I'm pretty sure I've got a signed first edition of the Kavalier & Clay book (which I've never read), because I was lucky enough to join a first editions club where it was the monthly selection,  and lurking nearby is a first printing of Mysteries of Pittsburgh, which I somehow recall picking up to read without managing to retain the recollection of it--perhaps I didn't finish? Oh, and I also watched the film adaptation of Wonder Boys, and that is the extent of my Chabon experience.  So I think it's safe to assume that I am not a leading Chabon scholar, though I do know how to pronounce his last name, which is actually more than some putative scholars know.

In preparation for hosting this hop, I also googled the names of each of the book's sections to see what they mean or perhaps to see if they were song titles.  Because that's just the kind of in-depth research and analysis I'm prepared to give this month.

I'm not gonna get all spoilery here for the actual discussion bits of Telegraph Avenue, but I did want to share with y'all a summary, paraphrase or two, and one direct quotation from Chabon's breakfast address at BEA.  He is a very good speaker, both earnest and funny, and I wish I had an actual video clip to show you, but apparently he's one of two breakfast speakers at BEA (the other one was Zadie Smith, who was also quite good) who did not get recorded because, you know, apparently it was far more important to record Jimmy Fallon and Kirstie Alley that morning for posterity. (They were the deadliners headliners.)

So anyway, Chabon takes the stage after Alley introduces him (and Alley was actually pretty funny, not a deadliner at all, but that was what my fingers accidentally typed the first time around) and he proceeds to tell us all why he chose to write Telegraph Avenue.  The short version is that he grew up in a planned neighborhood with lots of black & white people living in harmony but then he became an adult and moved around in mostly affluent white circles, when he realized that his teen self most likely wouldn't have approved of his adult self.  The long version starts with the black & white communities' very different reactions to the O. J. Simpson trial, moves on to the institutionalized racism that he'd unwittingly become a part of, and ends with the "apartheid of consciousness" that very much still marks the American landscape.

In other words, Michael Chabon was talking about race in America in a very open and honest way at 8:30 in the morning, and that was enough to get me to sit up and take notice.  You see, most people don't really address race in America, openly and honestly, at any time of day, much less over breakfast.

Tune in next week when we talk about the book itself.  Be there or be a rhombus with equal sides and equal interior angles, y'all!

Telegraph Avenue will be released in September 2012 by HarperCollins, who provided the ARCs for this readalong. If you're already intrigued and would like to pre-order a copy for yourself, please click here.

If you're participating in the hop, please post the link to your post below!

We're Gonna Rock Down to Telegraph Avenue

Okay, time to lay down some rules for the first-ever Telegraph Avenue pre-publication readalong.  Yay to Michael Chabon and his editor at HarperCollins for approving this project!

The approved participants are: Nichole, Alice, Robyn, BookBelle, Amy, Jennifer, Audra, Shannon, Brooks, Kerry M, Marie, and Lindsey. By signing up, you've agreed that you will not link to Amazon in any of your Michael Chabon posts; that you *will* link in each post to either your own local (US) independent bookstore OR The Odyssey Bookshop for pre-purchasing the book; that you will link back to my blog and enter your posts into a linky on my blog each Tuesday; and that you will sacrifice your first-born child on a homemade rowan wood altar or attack the demon mayor of Sunnydale with hummus when I give the signal--the choice is yours.  Oh, wait, that last bit belongs in a post about a Buffy the Vampire Slayer singalong that I'll be hosting later in the year.

Because I'm going to be vacationing for the last two weeks of June and the beginning of July, I basically scheduled this readalong to suit my own particular travel needs, so here are the requisite posts:

Tuesday, 3 July -- introductory post.  Maybe say why you're interested in this particular readalong, whether you've read Michael Chabon before, and whether you think he looks like my friend Linford from Over the Rhine (you're gonna have to look up my old post or do your own Google image search here, peoples. I can't do all of your work for you).

Tuesday, 10 July -- Discussion of Part One--Dream of Cream

Tuesday, 17 July -- Discussion of Part Two--The Church of Vinyl

Tuesday, 24 July -- Discussion of Parts Three & Four--A Bird of Wide Experience & Return to Forever

Tuesday, 31 July -- Discussion of Part Five--Brokeland--and a wrap up of the experience reading along for a not-yet-published work.

Your books are being mailed this Friday, so they should arrive in plenty of time to get started reading for the first discussion deadline of 10 July.  If you don't get the book by the end of this month, please leave me a comment here and I will work my magic from far afield in the wilds of Anguilla.

Michael Chabon Readalong: Or, How to Be COOL and Get an Advance Copy of His New Book

What the world needs now is love, sweet love. Plus a kick-ass Michael Chabon readalong.  Wouldn't you agree?  I certainly hope so, because come July, I am going to be hosting my first readalong, and it just so happens that it will be of the Michael Chabon variety.

Ho-hum, you say?  Everybody and her best friend has already read The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier & Clay and The Yiddish Policeman's Union?  Yes. Yes, they have.  He is wildly popular and with good reason *cough* Pulitizer Prize *cough*.  But not everybody has read Telegraph Avenue, his not-yet-published novel slated for a September 2012 release, eh? If you participate in this readalong, you will receive an advance readers copy and thus will be the envy of all of your friends, neighbors, and coworkers.  If you're very fortunate, it might even create a lifetime nemesis or two, so be forewarned.

This is a readalong made possible through the generosity of the publisher, open to a limited number of bona fide book bloggers. Harper Collins, bless 'em, has signed on to help me facilitate this project and will be providing me with a certain number of advance reading copies for the participants.  The official signup will be at the first week of June, the books will get sent out during that month, and the actual readalong will take place for the duration of July.

There are a few requirements for participation:

1) You must be a bonafide book blogger with a minimum of either 100 followers or a one-year track record for blogging.  

2) You must be willing to link exclusively to IndieBound OR your own local independent bookstore (i.e. no Barnes & Noble or Books-A-Million or other chain), OR my bookstore,  for each posting so that your readers may pre-order the book. If you're an Amazon affiliate, no Amazon links are permissible in the actual Telegraph Avenue readalong posts.

3) You must reside in the US in order to participate. (Sorry--too many international restrictions otherwise!)

4) Each readalong post must both link back to my blog AND post their weekly review in a linky on my blog so that it's easy for any reader to find all of the weekly responses. 

Please leave a comment below if you think you'd like to participate.  I have about one week to gather data and assess the general level of reader interest before reporting back to my sales rep, the tireless Anne DeCourcey to let her know the details.  There will be a maximum of 15 people participating because we want to keep it fairly intimate.

Any questions?  Fire away!

The man himself.  He looks a little like my friend Linford Detweiler from Over the Rhine.