I just bought this this afternoon, and given that it won the Hugo award for best novel this year, I was thinking it could be a cool book to throw out there as a book club possibility.
I’m still reading it for fun when I get the chance, even if no one wants to join me.
I’ve heard both good and bad (well, not-as-good-as-all-that) things about it. Let us know what you think.
It’s on my brother’s favorites list so I’m going to give it a try.
I feel so ashamed… I still haven’t read this book (it’s sitting in our apartment right now while I tear through school reading), AND I was given (oddly, the only book I was given for Christmas this year) Chabon’s The Final Solution. This must be a sign that I’m supposed to read these ASAP, rather than my schoolwork. Not that I will, I just found it interesting.
Um. so.
I’ve been busy.
I’m bumping in case anyone else might be interested in it for the book club.
The Book Club selection for July and August (2011) is Michael Chabon’s award-winning (Hugo, Nebula, Locus) The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (2007).
Nine months Landsman’s been flopping at the Hotel Zamenhof without any of his fellow residents managing to get themselves murdered.
SPOILERS AHEAD
And finally! almost 3 years down the line, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is the July/August 2011 Book Club Selection! Join the conversation here!
Wow. What a long trip that one has had. Looks like I’ll finally have to get it.
Mazeltov! This is a great book and I think you’ll enjoy it very much!
One potential challenge of reading the book is that Chabon throws in a lot of Yiddish phrases and slang, some of it real and some invented for the book. Luckily, there’s a handy glossary in the back of he book to refer to as you read, just to help tell the difference between a shammes from a schlemiel.
Also, pay attention for the Easter egg reference to a classic Star Trek episode when Chabon explains how the timeline in the book diverged from our own.
Anyone see this over the weekend and think of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union?
Slowly, much more slowly than usually, but I finally finished my re-read of this.
I really like how Chabon writes, and I really enjoyed the world of Sitka and the cultural stuff going on. Maybe this has more to do with things that I usually read, as my Yiddish is limited to whichever words have made their way into English, but the Yiddish and the different manifestations of Jewish cultures were really world-building for me. I also really enjoy the mystery investigation itself, and it held up pretty well on a re-read. I’m still left with the desire to know WHAT NOW! that I had the first time I read the book - what are the lasting consequences of the destruction of the Muslim shrine on Temple Mount? What is going on in America, especially via the Evangelical apocalyptic connection? What happens to the non Verbovers in Sitka after Reversion?
No answers. But it was still an entertaining read, and holds up well if you have to pick it up and put it down over extended periods of time.