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Harper Perennial




Title Author Publisher Price
The Yiddish Policemen's Union Michael Chabon Harper Perennial $14.44
($15.95 list)
Yiddishcop
Read more and comment... 		It's here, the much anticipated and long awaited new novel by the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.  It was originally scheduled to ship this time last year, but Chabon and his editor decided at the last minute to pull the plug and do a full rewrite.  As with Chabon's last novel, The Yiddish Policemen's Union is brimming with invention.  Conflating at least two genres -- the alternate history and the hard-boiled detective story -- his new work tells the story of Detective Landsman, Homicide, who works for the Federal District of Sitka, Alaska, the "temporary" safe haven created for Jewish refugees after the 1948 collapse of Israel.  The story is set on the eve of the district's reversion to Alaskan control, an event that is poised to plunge its populace into unknown territory. 
Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence William T. Vollmann Harper Perennial $9.95
($29.95 list)
Risingvollman
Read more and comment... 		This hefty hardcover volume is a 734 page abridgement of Vollman's massive seven-volume original that was published in 2003 by McSweeney's. Vollman's introduction states, "What you have here is (1) a selection of "when is violent defense of X justified" chapters, which are (I hope) interesting in their own right; followed by (2) the complete Moral Calculus, which contains my answers to every "when is" question considered in the long volume; rounded off with (3) several case studies from war zones, et cetera, along with all regional introductions to the case studies." Our favorite quote from the introduction: "The long version of Rising Up Rising Down took me twenty-three years... the abridgement took me half an hour." We're bringing this to your attention with the thought that now might be a fruitful time to reflect on this book's theme, and due to the spectacularly low price at which we currently able to offer it.