As some of you may know, I <3 Neil Gaiman and have done so ever since I saw/heard him speak at a library conference in about 2002*. He is thoughtful, kind, brilliant, and a marvelous writer. Plus, although he is British he lives only about 90 miles south of me in a gorgeous old Addams Family-type house that looks like it should be haunted.
He has a lamppost, straight out of Narnia, in his woods.
I read his blogs, both the one on his website and the one on Tumblr. I follow him and Amanda Palmer on Twitter. Does that make me a stalker? Maybe, but I prefer to think of it as being A Dedicated Fan.
If you have never heard of Neil Gaiman, here is a long clip of him on Craig Ferguson's show last June:
As much as I admire him, though, I have a hard time reading his books. I can listen to them on audio, especially when he reads them. (If you haven't listened to The Graveyard Book, I direct you to acquire the audio version forthwith and listen.) Except for Stardust and Neverwhere; those two are much gentler books. I struggled through American Gods a number of years ago. This year is the tenth anniversary of its publication, and there was a bit of hoopla about it, including a special tenth anniversary edition with 12,000 additional words. I chose American Gods for my book in my book group's November read. We all agreed that it is a strange, many-layered book, and one that we all found intriguing.
Gaiman is also very, very weird, and I mean that in the best possible way.
From An Evening With Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer:
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* After he spoke, my librarian friend and I ambushed him in the hall. She put her arm around him and I snapped a photo. Flashed it right in his face. She has the photo in her office, and I cringe every time I see it, remembering how rude we were to get it. He was far more gracious than we had any right to expect.
