Neil Gaiman has an alarming announcement on his journal this morning. Dreamhaven Books was broken into and their business is hurt as a result of the break in. Neil is calling for everyone to buy something from them to help them along in this time of trouble.
See the full post here: Dreamhaven Books post
If you don't know about Dreamhaven, they have a marvelous selection of signed Neil Gaiman books along with Charles Vess or Dave McKean. They have great things. Go see them! Go read Neil's post and then go buy something!
I've been a fan of DreamHaven Books in Minneapolis for over fifteen years, probably since Terry Pratchett and I did our first signing there for Good Omens (had I signed there before? I think so, but I can't remember. I first met owner Greg Ketter in 1987, on a train from Brighton to London, though). I like Greg Ketter and the staff, I love getting my books there (they have things I never see anywhere else that I WANT. I'm sure that lots of bookshops sell the annotated archy and mehitabel, but if I walk into DreamHaven something like that is the first thing I see. Happiness).
A few years ago I gave them www.neilgaiman.net, which I had, as a storefront, mostly because I got tired of replying to people who wanted to know where they could buy something -- anything -- by me "DreamHaven Books." I sign stuff for them when I pass by.
Some people think I have a stake in the shop or something, and I don't, other than a desire to still have it around as somewhere to do my shopping or to do signings or to phone and ask weird book-related questions. I've seen too many good bookshops go down in the last decade.
Greg's published a few of my books and audio books. They've even functioned as a maildrop for me over the years. Good people, good bookshop (and comics shop, and toys, oddments and even, in the backroom, eye-watering reading matter for adults only shop). (I don't know of any other shop that has "Vintage Sleaze" as a category for used books.)
I got an alarming email from Greg this morning...
We had a break-in on Saturday night. They got a bit of cash but wreaked
terrible havoc on the store and my office. Damages will be costly but
insurance should cover a lot of it. But after the lull in current
business, this really will hurt. I don't like charity but if you could
encourage people to maybe buy an extra book off us soon, it may help.
Three bookstores have closed in the Twin Cities in the past two months and
I don't want to make it four.
You can find them online at http://www.dreamhavenbooks.com. Their current catalogues are up there, for new and for used stuff. There's cool new stuff. There's stuff on sale.
If you want stuff by me -- or by people like Charles Vess or Dave McKean, who've worked with me, go and explore their http://neilgaiman.net site. Lots of signed stuff, and things you really can't find elsewhere. (They have three audio CDs, for example -- one's a double CD -- with many stories and such not recorded anywhere else.)
And if you're in the Minneapolis area, pop in. It's a big purple building. You can't miss it.
Go buy books from them. And tell other people. This is me being selfish. I want to buy books at DreamHaven for a long time to come. Good things die when people forget.
The quote is from Penn's radio show. You can also get it free from iTunes (here's the URL).
Over at Time Magazine they have a round up of the top ten comics/graphic novels of the year. All good choices, although I was surprised by the appearance on the list of some fine reprints (Kings in Disguise, for example.). Still, it was nice for me to see Absolute Sandman on there, mostly because when I wrote it, in 1987-1989, it would have been unthinkable for Time Magazine, or any real-world magazine, to have devoted any space at all to graphic novels or comics on a Best of the Year list. http://www.time.com/time/topten/2006/comics/10.html
Locus's Recommended list for 2006 is up at http://www.locusmag.com/2007/2006RecommendedReading.html
NEIL: JUST READ YOUR NEW MAILING ADDRESS - BUT I SEND YOU SOMETHING AT DREAMHAVEN -WILL THAT GET TO YOUOR DID I IS JUST WASTED MONEY SPEND ON MAILING? ALSO, ARE YOU REALLY GOING TO BE SPENDING SO MUCH TIME IN HOLLYWOOD? LUV YA- CLARE
It'll get to me, don't worry. It just tends not to be a very fast thing.
And no, I'm not going to be spending so much time in Hollywood, that's just where Cat and her office is. The joy of the modern world is that things can move around it very easily, and we decided that it's far better if letters and suchlike go to someone who can look at them that day and figure out what's meant to happen next, rather than be put in a box with my name on it under the counter at DreamHaven and wait for the next time I decide I need a haircut and go down to Hair Police and stop in at DreamHaven to sign stuff for them on the way home.
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Lots of artists and possibly someone who isn't an artist drew Spider-Man covers for a good cause. Details and you can pick out the blogging not-an-artist at:
http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=9528
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In honor of National Gorilla Suit Day, I did an artist trading card and thought you might enjoy it, a bit.Here's the url: http://www.mcmatz.com/2007/01/ebay_auction_at_4.html I will now slowly back towards the exit and fade away...--Madeline
Oh Mark Evanier and Don Martin, what have you wrought?
Dear Mr Gaiman, I've just finished watching the recording of the Cody's Books readings and Q&A session. I'd never heard you read your work before. It's distressing to find out that not only are you a fantastic author but you are also an evocative oral story teller. Surely you're not allowed to be both? On to my question. (I searched and couldn't find anything specifically on this topic but my apologies if I missed it.) As a writer, do you get a similar feeling of closure/reward/enjoyment when you've created the final climax of a story that you hope your readers will experience when reading it or do you always have one eye on the technicalities of writing? Thank you.Regards, Clare Milner
You're too kind.
And the only answer I can give is neither. Because you're not experiencing it at the same speed. There's a relief at getting to the end, but it's also the relief of getting to the end of something you've been working on for, often, several years. Which doesn't mean you're not affected on an emotional level by scenes or by what happens to characters, or that you don't feel what's happening while you write it. But a reader will read something in a few hours that might have taken you a couple of years or more to write. And that big moment of closure may have been followed by another six months of writing.
Neil,In a post a little while ago you mentioned the reading list John Crowley compiled - which looks absolutely fascinating. You said a couple of the books on the list were your favourites in the world. So that would seem to me a good place to start! Which were they though? Sorry if the answer should be apparent from elsewhere on the site but I couldn't find it...Best wishes
Dominic Hartley
They are Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay, a book I adore; and The Songlines by the brilliant Bruce Chatwin (do not write to me and point out that Songlines is factually dodgy sometimes. It's still an amazing book and Chatwin wrote astoundingly well).
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Do you realise this blog will be six years old on February the Ninth? I've had some ideas of things that we could put up that would be fun and special to celebrate the birthday, but they may not be ready in time...
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g'day mr. gaiman. or night. or whatever it is, where you're at.i've been going through your blog for a couple of days now... (...) here are a couple of questions that i sincerely want to know the answers to.with all the fame and joy you've attained from writing, aren't you afraid to lose it all in an instant? i don't want to be morbid and all, but with all the hard work you've put in to your works, are you afraid to die?sorry... i wanted to ask j.r.r. tolkien the same thing but he isn't around... you see, i'm scared of dying and i'm poor... what is it like for you who has all the things you've achieved in life?
I remember being scared of dying when I was on the plane from London to New York in mid 1988 with the first half of Dave McKean's Black Orchid art travelling in the plane cabin with me -- these were the painted originals, and there were no copies as Dave, barely out of art school, couldn't have afforded to get them all shot at that point. I was writing Sandman issue two or three back then.
And I knew that if the plane went down Dave would never have redrawn the Black Orchid pages, and it would never come out, and that even if the first couple of Sandmans came out no-one would have known where it was going or what it was going to be. I crossed the Atlantic sweating, mentally keeping that plane in the air all the way.
Nineteen years later, I'm remarkably sanguine about life and death. I'm really lucky, in that I've achieved an awful lot of the things I wanted to do, and some people noticed. If I died soon (something, I should add here, that I have no intention of doing; I like life and all the things that come with it), I'd leave a body of varied and interesting work and three amazing kids behind, and that's more than I ever set out to do or hoped for.
Does that help?
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I'd like to ask a small favour of those of you who have read down this far. Would anyone reading this, anyone with a blog or a website that is, mind linking to the last post -- http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2007/02/and-in-time-it-took-to-say-that-neil.html -- with the link text Penn Jillette? Given Penn's recent rant about the power and ubiquity of this blog on his radio show, I'd like to mess with his head just a little and see if we can actually google-bomb it so that that entry shows in the top few entries if you google Penn's name.
And sshhh, don't anyone tell him. I want it to be a surprise.
Right -- the Black Phoenix Alchemy page of scents for the CBLDF is now up at
http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/neverwhere.html
And I'm investigating whether we can do Stardust ones right now (as the Stardust scents that Beth sent were Maddy's favourites).
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And -- we'll put this up on the FAQ page and so on -- there is now a real address to send stuff that you want to get to my attention, which should work much better than DreamHaven Books (where stuff would sit in a box until the next time I came by). It is,
4470 Sunset Blvd. # 339
Los Angeles, CA 90027
USA
And it's being run by the Mystery Aide. Who is actually (drum-roll) Cat Mihos (http://www.furrytiger.com/), who is going to try and make sure that less of my life falls through the cracks, that I have more time and so on. (Currently lots of the mail coming in through the FAQ line is people who want to interview me, or for me to answer a few questions for their book, dissertation or website, to the point that if I said yes to them all or even to half, I would never get any time to do or write anything else. So those kind of requests, along with anything else, can now be sent to Cat who can at least coordinate them.)
And Cat is also [email protected], should any of you need to reach her directly. She'll be running the LA end of things, and dealing with some of the stuff I simply haven't had the time to get to. (The Fabulous Lorraine is still my PA.)
If you want to send me a book to get signed along with return postage and packaging, though, or buy a signed book, or anything like that, you should still talk to DreamHaven, via their online shop of stuff by me at www.neilgaiman.net website.
Right. Maddy has a whole new hairdo consisting of a fringe (which Americans inexplicably call bangs), or bangs (which the English mysteriously call a fringe), and she looks oddly like the Coraline puppet from the Henry Selick film, while I have, er, not quite as much hair in my eyes as I did this morning. Stopped off at DreamHaven (http://www.dreamhavenbooks.com/) after the haircut and signed a pile of stuff for them (it'll be up on www.Neilgaiman.net soon enough).
Also bought a few books, which considering how much time I've had recently to read, and how much I have sitting in piles waiting to be read (I seem to be reading everything I can find about Bert Williams right now) is madness. Still, I picked up, with joyful expectation, Avram Davidson's Adventures in Unhistory, Diana Wynne Jones's The Pinhoe Egg, and Kim Newman's The Man from the Diogenes Club. It's nice to have books on the To Be Read Pile you know will be good. A Charles Vess cover drew my eye, and I found myself getting the paperback of Herminie Kavanagh's Darby O'Gill, and I wrapped up the shopping expedition with a copy of M. John Harrison's Viriconium (not to read, just so I had a copy with my introduction in).
And I just got to see some site statistics (courtesy of Dan Guy who has made the Webelf her Clouds -- the first is up at http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/labels/ and is really rather fun. Hurrah for you helpful people out there reading this) and I learned that as of the last post, I'd written One Million and Fourteen Thousand, Two Hundred and Sixty One words on this blog.
I wish I'd known that 14,261 words ago. We would have had a party. With balloons.
