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4.0 AVERAGE
4.0 AVERAGE
I love Neil Gaiman. I love his writing, I love his ideas, I love his voice reading all his beautiful words to me. This collection was a beautiful celebration of writing, writers, imagination, and stories.
Four stars is an average as I'd give several essays, such as Why Our Future Depends on Libraries, Reading and Daydreaming, Telling Lies for a Living … and Why We Do It, and What the [Very Bad Swearword] Is a Children’s Book, Anyway? five plus stars. Others I may only give three, but not because they weren't well-written. Some of the essays just weren't that interesting to me as I'm not familiar with, or interested in, graphic novels and comics.
I especially enjoyed hearing about the books/authors that/who influenced him even though it increased the size of my to-read list significantly. I recommend getting the audio version just to hear Neil do his Stephen King impression. It was awesome.
I especially enjoyed hearing about the books/authors that/who influenced him even though it increased the size of my to-read list significantly. I recommend getting the audio version just to hear Neil do his Stephen King impression. It was awesome.
Some of these writings I'd have given 5 stars to, some I ended up just skipping entirely after listening a minute or so, so overall, went for the 3. Hearing Gaiman read his words in his own voice was a treat (and listening to him try to do the voices of Stephen King and Lou Reed, alone, was worth the listen). On the plus side, there was not a lot of overlap between the collected writings.
If you're a fan of Gaiman, you'll really want to read this one. If you're passingly acquainted with him, you'll probably find things in here you enjoy.
If you're a fan of Gaiman, you'll really want to read this one. If you're passingly acquainted with him, you'll probably find things in here you enjoy.
This book would have been great (albeit heavy) to read on the bus. Except I'm no longer bus commuting. And it's not really the sort of thing you read all in a go (I really tried; sorry whoever wanted it from the library.)
However! I heard of a lot of things I was unfamiliar with, remembered some things I had forgotten about from the 90's, and put some books on hold. We'll see if I agree with Mr Gaiman's assessment of things.
However! I heard of a lot of things I was unfamiliar with, remembered some things I had forgotten about from the 90's, and put some books on hold. We'll see if I agree with Mr Gaiman's assessment of things.
My SF&F reading list is longer due to Gaiman's introductions for various other authors. Audiobook is best, because of Gaiman's reading voice. I could listen to him read a spreadsheet. I'll now and forever pronounce "labyrinth" as "LABBY-rinth" in the English manner, like Neil does.
An interesting look into the life and views of one of today's most popular authors.
Wonderful. Didn't expect to enjoy this as much as I did. Not sure if was the words or just Neil Gaiman's hypnotic voice but now I just want to shut myself away and devour some books!
A must for all fans of books, comics, sci-fi, music, art, writing - everyone really
A must for all fans of books, comics, sci-fi, music, art, writing - everyone really
Don't get me wrong; I love Neil Gaiman's fiction and his works and his thoughts and all of it. But, aside from the opening few essays and the closing few essays, this felt like work. Aside from those two sections that were more general in nature, the rest of these were introductions he'd written for various works by other authors, artists, musicians, and comic book artists. Without the works he referenced, it felt a little flat and repetitive and a touch egotistical. Eventually I started skipping around to just reading the essays for those works I was already familiar with. Some of the pithier items about writing and art in general were very worthwhile, but I'm not sure they made up for the rest of it.
An interesting side effect of listening to so many of Neil Gaiman's books on audio is that I can read in his voice in my own head. Interesting or scary.