Friday Favorites: Neil Gaiman

Friday, April 16, 2010


Today's Friday Favorite is a bit of a mash up. Tonight I'm going to hear one of my favorite authors speak. I'm sure I have quite a few favorites that out rank him, but most of them are dead. Of my favorite living authors, he's near the top.

Neil Gaiman [insert Woo Hoo! here] is speaking in my fair city tonight and barring tornados and such, I'll be there. A few of Gaiman's books have certainly crept on to my favorites list over the years, but truly it's his body of works that impresses me. It's ridiculously diverse.

The man started in graphic novels and has since blown the literary world away with epic mythological tales like, American Gods, short story collection, Fragile Things, young adult books, The Graveyard Book, cheeky fairy tales, Stardust, and so much more. His work has been turned into films (Stardust and Coraline); he's collaborated on fascinating projects and so much more.

He tends towards the macabre, which I love, but he never loses his sense of humor. The Anansi Boys is a great example of this. I'm also astonished by the sheer amount of work he's put out in the past two decades and he doesn't seem to be slowing any time soon.

So anyway, it's not exactly a Friday Favorite ode to one book, but rather one author and many books. I've only mentioned a tiny sliver of his work here, but it's enough to get your feet wet if you've never tried him. So start reading!

P.S. I'll let you all know how tonight goes!

Image compilation by moi.

Gaiman image from here.

2 comments:

Jeanne said...

I admired American Gods, but didn't start to love Gaiman's writing until I read the stories in M is for Magic.

lydia said...

Neil Gaiman? In Indy? I bet that was awesome! Can't wait to hear how it went!