What others say: Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon

Fine Print: I haven’t read this book yet, but it came out Tuesday and is already number 7 on Amazon so I thought I’d include an entry. Also check a New York Times article on literary blogs and the decline of newspaper reviewers—relevant especially to me since this blog developed because I wanted to have a book column for the Anchorage Daily News but they said they didn’t have the money to pay me—for a column or reviews.

What I’m reading now: Beluga Days by Nancy Lord

Anchorage Daily News:
The ADN picked the novel as its May book club pick. There will be an author reading and book signing at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 29th at Title Wave Books, 1360 W. Northern Blvd. Free, but tickets required.

Novel involving Alaska Jewish colony is rooted in history
by Tom Kizzia
Imagine, if you please, a city of 3.2 million people on the shores of Baranof Island around Sitka. The official language is Yiddish, the inhabitants are Jews, and their lights stretch across the in...

Associated Press

Chabon creates alternate reality in `Yiddish Policeman's Union'
BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) - A wartime proposal to turn Alaska into a sanctuary for Jews fleeing the rising Nazi menace failed. But suppose it hadn't.

Chabon sets Jewish homeland in Alaska in new book
Michael Chabon: When did great writers quit telling great stories? That was Michael Chabon's complaint in his introduction to "McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales" ...

New York Times
Looking for a Home in the Limbo of Alaska
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
From the moment of his precocious debut in 1988 with “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh,” it was clear that Michael Chabon was an immensely gifted writer and a magical prose stylist.

The Frozen Chosen
By Patricia Cohen
ASIDE from geography, Sitka, a boomerang-shaped island in the southeastern panhandle of Alaska, has very little in common with the imaginary city named Sitka conjured up by Michael Chabon in his latest book, “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.”

HarperCollins. 414 pages. $26.95