You searched for book_author:"Neil Gaiman"
One last book review from 2017! I almost forgot I read this, because I read it into a microphone. I recorded a bespoke audiobook of Stardust as a Christmas gift for a friend who hasn’t had a lot of time to read and is trying to get back into it with audiobooks. I chose Stardust for its length and because it has an upbeat ending, which is something my friend expressed more interest in after…
First of all, let’s be clear: Norse mythology is hella cool.
In his introduction to Norse Mythology, Neil Gaiman echoes what draws me to it. Like him, I was entranced by the stories of the Norse gods from an early age. I remember vividly my elementary school library having this big, thick book on Norse mythology full of illustrations. When I went through my mythology phase, I tolerated the Greek gods and occasionally talked…
Fairytale retellings are sooooooo in these days, and probably with good reason. Fairytales are, in some ways, cultural bedrock. They are meant to be adapted, retold, reimagined with each new generation and new age. The popularity of such a practice fluctuates, but they are always there, beneath the surface, lurking and awaiting their next moment in the spotlight. Hollywood is incredibly talented at messing up its attempts to retell fairytales (although I have to admit,…
I am slowly but surely running out of ways to review anthologies. It’s maddening, let me tell you. #firstworldproblems
What can I say about Trigger Warning? It’s another anthology. It’s another Neil Gaiman anthology. Much like Smoke and Mirrors and Fragile Things, Trigger Warning has its moments, its trademark Gaimanesque departures into clever flights of fantasy—but it’s just not the form for me. Gaiman waxes poetic about short stories in his introduction; it…
My review of Flannery has been pre-empted because as I write this I’m out of town (a rare occurrence). Rather than try to write that review without referring to the book for the choicest tidbits, I might as well review Anansi Boys, which I read during the combined three hours of flights I had on Tuesday evening. I previously read this book a while ago, but like many of Neil Gaiman’s novels, it was…
Now that I own copies of Neil Gaiman’s three short story anthologies, I re-read Fragile Things and then tackled this one, Smoke and Mirrors. As with Fragile Things this earlier collection has a description of each story’s origin in the introduction. Unlike the other collection, Smoke and Mirrors’ introduction also comes with a bonus short story embedded. So, yeah. There’s that.
I have to say that the more I read Gaiman’s stories…
I first read Fragile Things back in my first year of university, after which I promptly lent it to a friend, who gave it back to me three or four years later—as can sometimes happen when I lend out books. I’ve been meaning to re-read it for a while so I can write a review. Then Neil Gaiman’s newest collection, Trigger Warning came out. So when I bought that, I also picked up his first…
Using the word versatile to describe Neil Gaiman is a bit like using the word crooked to describe a politician or talented to describe the holder of a world record for most pies eaten in an hour. It just seems obvious.
But think about it. Gaiman has written short stories and novels and all the lengths of fiction in between. He’s written comics/graphic novels. He writes for children and for adults, and picture books for…
I admit there was a bit of a high-pitched shriek on Twitter the day I found out Neil Gaiman had a new novel coming out. Mind you, this is about on schedule for him—he seems to have one steeped and ready every four or five years. Gaiman is a prolific author but has never confined himself to any one genre or form. Indeed, as I glanced over his bibliography page on Wikipedia, I was…
I love libraries! I hadn’t planned to get the illustrated version of this, or probably read it at all. But then there it was, on my library’s New Books shelf, staring at me … and I stared back … and I borrowed it. Because that’s what libraries let you do. They let you take books, as long as you promise to bring them back. It’s amazing.
The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains…
In everyone’s life there is always at least one door. You know the door I mean. It’s the one that you’ve never opened, even though you’ve always wanted to. It could be the front door of the creepy, abandoned house at the end of your street. It could be the strange door at the top of the stairs in your school, the one that doesn’t lead to the roof and probably leads to a boring…
Oh, let me count and enumerate the many and various ways I love Neil Gaiman and, in particular, American Gods. I love it because I am insecure and, at times, unsure of my love for it. I love it because it isn't perfect, yet it's still wonderful. I love it because it promises gods and gives us people, and somewhere along the way, somehow, Gaiman manages to make…
Neil Gaiman is one of the world's leading storytellers, and The Graveyard Book great story--several stories, in fact, all bound up into one nice narrative.
I have great respect for Gaiman because he does not patronize children. The Graveyard Book is, in many ways, a children's book (although adults will enjoy it as well). Unlike much of the mass culture drivel produced for children these days, Gaiman does not treat children like they are idiots…