Adventures in the Dream Trade

by Neil Gaiman, Tony Lewis (Editor), Priscilla Olson (Editor)

The English novelist, graphic novelist, and screenwriter offers a diverse range of writings, including poems, song lyrics, essays, journal entries, and stories.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Short Stories, Poetry, Ebooks, Essays, Science Fiction

286 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Dale · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the twenty-seventh book I read on my commute.

I'm a huge fan of Neil Gaiman, who writes delightful fantasy novels and short stories and comic books, so I added this book to my wishlist a while ago and lo, it appeared for my birthday. I'm calling this book non-fiction, though, because, well, it's mostly not fiction. It's a weird little hodgepodge of stuff. To be honest, it seems like a quick cash-in to make some money off Gaiman's name.

The meat of the book is a reprinting of Gaiman's blog from the period of time during which he was finalizing, and then touring to promote, his novel American Gods (which I have read). It's an interesting behind-the-scenes look at a writer's life, and it's all true (even the improbable parts). Unfortunately it's also way too short to be an entire book - probably less than a hundred pages.

So another big chunk of the book is a collection of introductions, forewords and afterwords that Gaiman has written over the years. These are basically essays about books which really exist, so they too are non-fiction ... except when Gaiman gets whimsical, which he is prone to do. The hardest part about reading that section was that some of the intros were so compelling I wanted to turn the page and start devouring the novel Gaiman was praising ... but instead the next page had yet another intro to a different book. Unsettling.

There were other random things thrown in that hadn't been collected before, poems and song lyrics and transcripts of speeches and so on. It was all pleasant enough for killing time on the commute, but overall not nearly as awesome as reading Gaiman's fiction.

Running total for types of books read on the commute:

Classics: 1
Modern Lit: 9
Fantasy/sci-fi: 12
Non-fiction: 5

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good collection of random Gaiman. There's an introduction by John M. Ford that I could have done without, followed by 75 pages or so of introductions that Gaiman wrote for a wide variety of other peoples' work. I especially enjoyed his views on Lord Dunsany, Alfred Bester, Roger Zelazny, and, of course, Harlan Ellison. About twenty pages of poems and song lyrics follow, all of them quite clever and entertaining. The largest section of the book (over 150 pages) is his blog from February through September of 2001, encompassing the release and his promotional tour for American Gods. It's a fascinating slice of autobiography, particularly seeing how travel and technology and the world in general has changed since 9/11/2001, and he offers some insightful reactions along the way, as well as some amusing anecdotes recounting his life on the road, and the idea of posting a journal in general. (Remember, it was a new concept at the time.) I do wish they would have edited out some of the ephemeral details such as details of upcoming interview broadcasts and web links. The book concludes with a handful of very, very short stories. His work is always excellent, and it was quite interesting to read such a personal chunk that was extemporaneous and unpolished. It's a very good volume.

[Rod Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

For Neil Gaiman completists only, here's a collection of introductions he has written for various books, some random poetry and lyrics, some other odds and ends, and mostly a blog he wrote during the final publication stages and book tour for American Gods.

Some of the introductions tempt me to seek out the books mentioned. And the blog is just a nice chatty visit with Gaiman behind the scenes.

Too bad his bad behavior has derailed his career and puts a taint on the charming image he projects here.


FOR REFERENCE:

Contents

The Introduction / John M. Ford

Mostly Introductions
• Fan Letter
• Shameful Secrets of Comics Retailing: The Lingerie Connection
• But What Has That to Do With Bacchus? (Deadface)
• Breathtaker
• Bratpack (Rick Veitch)
• Astro City: Confession (Kurt Busiek)
• 300 Good Rerasons to Resent Dave Sim (Cerebus)
• Tantrum (Jules Feiffer)
• The Dark Knight Returns
• Starchild: Crossroads (James A. Owen)
• The Adventures of Professor Thintwhistle and His Aetheric Flyer (Lupoff & Stiles)
• Of Time and Gully Foyle (Alfred Bester)
• Concerning Dreams and Nightmares (H. P. Lovecraft)
• The Einstein Intersection (Samuel Delany)
• The Swords of Lankhmar (Fritz Leiber)
• The Screwtape Letters (C. S. Lewis)
• The King of Elfland's Daughter (Lord Dunsany)
• Curiosities: Lud-in-the-Mist (Hope Mirrlees)
• From the End of the Twentieth Century (John M. Ford)
• Jonathan Carroll
• Roger Zelazny
• The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World (Harlan Ellison)
• Banging the Drum for Harlan Ellison
• After They've brought on the Dancing Girls

Poetry
• A Writer's Prayer
• Neil's Thankyou Pome
• Sonnet
• How to Write Longfellow's "Hiawatha"
• The Old Warlock's Reverie: A Pantoum

Flash Girls
• In Re: Pansy Smith and Violet Jones
• Banshee
• Post Mortem of Our Love
• Personal Thing
• All Purpose Folk Song
• A Girl Needs a Knife

American Gods Web Log

Fiction
• Time Out
• December 7, 1995
• Good Boys Deserve Favours
• The Flints of Memory Lane
• Essay for Patti

On Gaiman

[Henrik · Rating 3 out of 5]

A large part of this book is the collected blog-posts of Neil Gaiman from the time before the release of his book "American Gods", from the signing tour of said book, and from a few months after the tour.
This means spring to autumn of 2001.
Reading this, his own reflections about this "online journal" and it's uses, is a good reminder about how young the concept of blogs are, because at that time, it was really a new concept, and the idea of an author posting his daily doings like that was mocked by many, and questioned by even more, while nowadays no one would bat an eye at it.
Putting a blog into a book this way is not entirely good, blogs and books are very different things, which becomes apparent quite quickly.

The rest of the book, the parts that are not blogging, is a collection of short stories, introductions and other bits and pieces by or about Gaiman, it's really quite a mishmash and the quality varies greatly.
I'm not sure if I can recommend this book to anyone other than big fans of Gaiman, or people who wants a behind the scenes tour of an authors life and what's it like to release a book.

[Melissa Jacobson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The reason this is getting four stars is because THE POETRY. I do not like poetry. I typically hate it and I am very picky. But I adored Gaiman's poems in this. If this had just been a poetry collection this would have easily been five stars but since it had some other content that I wasnt in love with I decided to give this a solid four stars. Honestly, if you can track down Gaiman's poetry I highly recommend it!

[Alison C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having been a fan of Neil Gaiman's writing since his Sandman comics days in the late 1980s/early 1990s, I always pick up anything with his name on it. Adventures in the Dream Trade is no exception; I picked it up at WorldCon in early August 2009. It's a book of Neil ephemera - introductions he wrote to other people's books and graphic novels, poetry, song lyrics and a few pieces of short fiction. The bulk of the book is a reprinting of his blog from February to September 2001, which charts the process between the time he turned in the manuscript for American Gods to the time it was published and shortly thereafter, when he was on book signing tours (in America, the UK and Canada). This is actually quite fascinating, as he describes the process of reviewing what the copy editor has done (which often seems to consist of Neil telling the publisher to put the words back the way he'd written them), how covers for books are chosen, who is invited to write blurbs for a given book and why; all sorts of information about How It's Done. And, of course, being Neil, it's all very entertainingly told. That said, I'd venture a guess that this is probably only for completists, or in any event only for fans who know his writing well; others might find the stories entertaining (well, I'm sure they would), but would miss a vast amount of references to his work. So I recommend it, but it's up to you to decide for whom I recommend it {g}.

[Omega Howell · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are not already familiar with and admiring of Neil's writing, this absolutely should not be your introduction to it - go read stardust, and American gods, and sandman, and come back to this - don't worry, we'll wait.

If you are already a fan, the kind of fan who'd be happy to ready anything Neil wrote, even a shopping list, just for the pleasure of admiring the doodles in the corners of the page... Then you, like me, will find this collection of oddities a delight.

[James Swenson · Rating 2 out of 5]

You'll want to read this if you can't stand the thought that Neil Gaiman wrote something somewhere and you haven't read it. Otherwise, let it go. It's a bunch of introductions he wrote for various books, a few poems, and then a whole lot of blog posts from his American Gods book tour (most of which I skipped), and finally a few short-short stories.

[Andrew Dearborn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good and interesting but the American Gods weblog goes on a bit long... while the insights into the publishing world are great it tends to get dry after the first 100 pages.

[Randy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but jumbled. Worthwhile to read his blog posts of what an author goes through to promote a book.

[Sara Dee · Rating 4 out of 5]

good good stuff but cannot be read all at once. it gets to be too much. I read these on the eliptical at the gym!

[Eva Amsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I discovered on my Kindle an unfamiliar Neil Gaiman collection which I seemed to have once downloaded from Humble Bundle. One of the books was this, Adventures in the Dream Trade. It gathers together short pieces of writing that were never meant to be read together - certainly not published together. The first section is a variety of introductions written for other books - mostly books I have never read. It’s a weird feeling to read an introduction to a book, turn the page, and, instead of the book, find another introduction to another book. It feels like a rollercoaster that only ever does the slow, ticking, upwards journey.

Other parts of the book include poetry, song lyrics, and some fiction, but the biggest part of it is a republication of Neil Gaiman’s very first online journal, which he wrote in Spring and Summer of 2001, ahead of and during the publication of the first edition of American Gods.

I have been a long time reader of Neil Gaiman’s online journal (he even answered one of my questions once, through the FAQ system which is mentioned often in the later entries of the American Gods journal - usually in the context of it not being ready yet). I’m pretty sure I read at least some of these journal entries at the time of their original publication. You might think that re-reading them sixteen years later would be boring. After all, some of them are just lists of then-upcoming stops of a massive book tour. But as a fan of early internet communities, I was hit with such a bout of nostalgia that this is easily one of the best things I read all year. (And if the entire book was just this diary, I would have given it five stars here.)

There’s the time when Neil loses a blogger entry because he accidentally kicked the phone cord out of the wall, and the fact that he used blogger - a now archaic blog software, which I also used back in 2001. Blogger crashed every other entry, and Neil never learns to write and save his posts offline. Websites were down, message boards crashed, and at one point the entire site was compromised by malware. At every mention of a typical 2001 internet experience I almost squealed with delight. Remember that? That tedious and uncertain dial-up experience? That was what it was like.

There’s the description of the “chunk” sound made by tape recorders being switched off, and the casual mention of pre-Euro European currencies. Amazon existed, but was a bit unreliable. CompuServe was big, email storage was small, and people owned more palm pilots than Moleskines. Terry Pratchett was still alive, but we learn what Neil was doing when he found out Douglas Adams no longer was.

Then there’s the entry posted at 9:05 on a Tuesday morning, with several apologetic paragraphs about the flimsy cardstock of a Tarot deck edition. Seven minutes later, at 9:12, a new entry: “The phone lines to New York aren’t doing anything, and the cell phone numbers I’ve been dialing are dead.” It was September 11.

The American Gods online journal ends a few entries later, after which it’s converted to its current location at NeilGaiman.com, a website whose slow birth is also documented in the journal entries in this book.

Neil Gaiman still writes an online journal, and I still occasionally read it. I look forward to 2033, when this year’s entries in a future collection of random writings will evoke an equally strong sense of nostalgia about the minutiae of internet and geek life to the backdrop of a world that never seemed to get less strange and scary than it was that Tuesday in September 2001.

[Sladjana Kovacevic · Rating 5 out of 5]

ADVENTURES IN THE DREAM TRADE-NEIL GAIMAN
✒"And then eventually we're wandering out on the streets of London because that place had shut too, and it's only us left, and she says, “How come you can't get a drink in London at four in the morning?”
And I said, hey it's easy, and knocked on a door, and a man came out and looked at us, and I said, It's okay, we're friends of Lemmy's, and he said, Lemmy's downstairs, and let us in. This part of the anecdote is more impressive when you stop and realise a) I had no clue as to where we were, it just kind of looked like an after-hours kind of door, and b) previous times in Soho I'd noticed that Lemmy of Motorhead could often be seen playing fruit machines in strange establishments late at night, so I figured he had to be a good name to drop, but it was kind of weird that he was down there. I went over to him (he was playing the fruit machine) and I said, Hi, I used your name to get in, and he said no problem."
✒"Reading Black House today. It's odd finding oneself, whether one wants to or not, playing the game of “spot the author”—and knowing that, the way things work, whenever I'm sure who wrote what I'll be guessing wrong, like the people who “know” just who wrote what in Good Omens (a book I wrote with Terry Pratchett) always seem to have guessed wrong. Which means if I ever hit a passage in Black House that has to be written by King, I bet it's by Peter, and if ever I get to a section about obscure Jazz greats, I bet it's been written by Steve, just to confuse me."
📚Ovo je prava poslastica za sve fanove Nila Gejmena i za sve koji će tek da postanu
📚Šta imamo ovde?
🖋Uvodnike koju je pisao za neke knjige, između ostalog i za zbirku priča H.P. Lavkrafta Dreams and nightmares
🖋Gejmanovu poeziju i sithove za pesme folk benda iz Mineapolisa Flash Girls.
🖋Web dnevnik u toku objavljivanja i promocije Američkih bogova. Duhovite i mudre observacije vezane za izdavaštvo,marketing,potpisivanje knjiga,intervjue...
🖋Neke Gejmanove pripovetke.
📚A tu je i mnoštvo anegdota od kojih sam izdvojila u citatima susret s Lemijem Kilmisterom i čitanje Crne Kuće Stivena Kinga/P Strauba
#7sensesofabook #knjige #bookstagram #neilgaiman

[Luke Paulsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection, more or less, of stuff Neil Gaiman wrote not intending it to be published. A big chunk of a 2001-era "blog" detailing the process of publishing and promoting his novel American Gods; a bevy of joyous, fanciful, opinionated introductions that he wrote for others' work; a smattering of original poems and vignettes. Is it weird that I found myself enjoying it so much? Enjoying it more, in some ways, than Gaiman's fantasy novels?

See, the Gaiman who narrates the novels is really working at it. He's making a noticeable effort to infuse his stories with that obscure, quasi-mythic significance that's become his signature. The Gaiman writing this book's material, on the other hand, is just having fun being himself. Reading this book feels like hanging out with an inventive, thoughtful, optimistic person who also happens to be a darn good writer. He writes a tech-burdened journal, favors his friends with intros and small literary gifts, relates inside baseball from the comic and book businesses-- all forthrightly and with a smile. His casual prose has exactly the self-deprecating matter-of-fact-ness I should've expected from an England-to-Minnesota transplant. And a bunch of the people and books he shouts out are going to my to-read list. Really, what more could you want?

[Ruth Collier · Rating 3 out of 5]

By the nature of this book it's a mixed bag, it's Neil Gaiman so of course it's entertaining but probably one for big fans only.
There are three main categories of content, the largest is the web journal from the American Gods release and signing tour. It's a good insight into the publication and promotion process, and there's quite a few funny anecdotes but it's a bit hard to read much of it in one go.. with the ebook version i have, i feel it might have been more accessible in smaller chapters (maybe by month?) Rather than two of 164 pages each.
There are also a number of introductions which are interesting and well written, but also bad for my wishlist because I want to read everything Mr Gaiman recommends!
The smallest part of the book is poetry/fiction/prose - all very short but very good. If you're not interested in the journal or introductions, it might be worth looking these up separately (I know one or two have been published elsewhere, and some are in cd inlays)

[Deathburst · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got this as an ebook from Humble Bundle, and it was an instructive but not pleasurable read.

Gaiman is a great author, and what he has to say about the publishing business, how to write introductions, etc. is valuable, but (and granted, this is entirely my own fault), I was looking for a cool story, and not a lesson, so I was rather disappointed when I found out what this book actually was.

If you're either an aspiring writer or a Gaiman fan, you should definitely check this out though, despite my two-star rating. It was not a book for me, but it's still a objectively a good book, if you take it for what it is.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of random Gaiman stuff. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who isn't already a big Gaiman fan. I really enjoyed parts of this, but I skimmed or skipped over other parts. Surprisingly, the section consisting of his blog posts from the American Gods book tour was my favorite part. It was fun revisiting 2001 for a while.

[Molokov · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection includes mostly introductions and essays, a copy of Neil's American Gods book tour blog (covering most of 2001) and a few very short stories. Some were new to me, some are in A View from the Cheap Seats, and all are good Gaiman. The Blog entries were a nice window to the past but did take a very long time to get through, I think I should have skipped some. But still, nice to get through another Neil Gaiman collection

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember a review of this on here saying that if you absolutely must read every word Neil Gaiman has written, go ahead and read this. That's pretty accurate. There are some gems of wisdom and highlight-worthy lines, but unless you really want to read a lot of forewords and his American God's blog (interesting, but not enough for me to finish it) give it a pass.

[Anneli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very insightful

[Susan Peak · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting, if inevitably rather bitty, collection of introductions by Neil Gaiman, a journal about publishing American Gods, and some short stories. I found it quite satisfying

[Pittoresque · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Neil Gaiman's writing, so it's only naturally I enjoyed this one as well...that being said, for big parts of it, it's not a book you pick up and just read. It's a collection of vastly different things, and you can't just go through and jump from one thing to the other...at least, I couldn't. There are some poems and short stories, which where really enjoyable. There were some forewords, which were also entertaining, but not as easy to read - I had to look up some of the works reviewed and reference, and I think my to-read-list had some significant growth during that part! And then, of course, there is the blog Gaiman wrote during the signing-tour of American Gods, and a little before and after that. I really recommend reading American Gods before reading this blog, to both avoid small spoilers and better be able to follow what he talks about!
I also had a few eerie moments when a signing in the World Trade Center (Summer of 2001) is described, and again when the day of the attacks itself comes up...as a European (and one that was too young to fully comprehend what was going on at the time), this gave me a small glimpse at what it must have felt like for people in the US during that time.

[Mayumi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Algumas citações marcadas como spoiler.


Women, after all, buy more of the books than men do. They like to read. And there is no X-chromosome-linked inability to read comics, either. - pág.22

This volume, published and compiled by Friends of Lulu, is here to help all of you sell more comics. You are selling people dreams and stories and pictures, and there’s never been anything gender-specific about them. You have, after all, nothing to lose but fifty percent of the human race. - pág.23

There’s a mixture of love and hatred here that’s heady, weird, and unique: subtle as a gang-rape, gentle as a crowbar shattering a skull, sweet as a dead boy in a bell tower feeding on pigeons. - pág.31

Well, yeah. I suppose I’d think it was odd if an adult male’s best friend and closest, most constant companion was a twelve-year-old boy. Now you come to mention it. - pág.32

people do tell stories in pubs, and all of them, I was assured, were quite true, for they happened to a friend of a friend of the person who told me the tale. - pág.59

Lovecraft is a resonating wave. He’s rock and roll. - pág.72

It is too often a sad and unwise thing to go back and read a favourite book. - pág.78

It wasn’t those writers or artists who accurately recorded life: the special ones were the ones who drew it or wrote it so personally that, in some sense, it seemed as if they were creating life, or creating the world and bringing it back to you. And once you’d seen it through their eyes you could never un-see it, not ever again. - pág.93

“Neil, dear. I think there’s something you ought to know. Listen: to be eccentric, you must first know your circle.” And I—for once—heard, and listened, and understood. You can fuck around with the rules as much as you want to—after you know what the rules are. You can be Picasso after you know how to paint. Do it your way; but know how to do it their way first. - pág.100

Let me say true things in a voice that’s true, and, with the truth in mind, let me write lies. - pág.114

Before I start I grab a pile of dictionaries, English and American, and a bunch of books on usage—Fowler’s, and the Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage, and Bill Bryson’s lovely Penguin Dictionary of Troublesome Words—and the Chicago Manual of Style, and wade in. - pág.145

(Minor side note. If memory serves, “blurb” as a word was created by American humorist Gelett Burgess (who also wrote the “Purple Cow” poem). It means, basically, the puff stuff on the back of a book that tells you you ought to read it. - pág.176

Obviously a strike, like a hanging, concentrates the mind wonderfully. - pág.183

The subject I paid most attention to in school was SF. That they didn’t teach it made no difference. It was what I was studying. - pág.185

Amacker drives a little like a Brazilian taxi driver who took me and my editor from the Rio book fair to the airport last month. The traffic speed was maybe 40. He never drove at less than 70, nipping into tiny spaces, lurching manically from lane to lane. As soon as I was sure I wasn’t going to die, it was kind of fun. Amacker would like that taxi driver. I think they went to the same driving school. - pág.258

And good evangelism—which means, of course, spreading the good news—should never be fully-baked, anyway, otherwise it gets stale quickly. It should be like those loaves of half-baked bread that you finish off in your oven at home. Half-baked evangelism is the best kind. - pág.314

But I’d rather admit that Cait wrote Stardust while I was busy fighting crime off-planet. When you’re battling Denebian slime-worms, who has time to write? Thank heavens for the Legion of Substitute Neils. Gene Wolfe wrote Neverwhere for me, while the late Ian Fleming wrote American Gods via planchette. - pág.338

I did take it as a cautionary tale, and a reminder: as long as you know who God wants you to hate and to hurt then anything you do to them is justified. - pág.340

“You know, if I don’t go, if I just sit here for the next week, I’ll feel like those twerps have won. And to the extent that people stop travelling and stop doing things, to the extent that we withdraw from the world, then that’s the extent that whoever did these appalling things wins and the rest of us lose.” - pág.341

I ought to post something tonight, but jetlag has caught up with me, like an elephant sitting down on a grapefruit. With me being the grapefruit, I suppose, because I don’t feel very elephantine. - pág.348

that twilight place where fiction and memory collapse gently into each other, and demonstrates that while things need not have happened to be true, by the same token just because something really happened, it is still not to be relied upon. - pág.350

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a fan of Neil Gaiman and I enjoyed this collection of ephemera, as it is described by another reviewer. The longest part of the book is the blog about the launch of "American Gods", so it is rather fitting that I should read it now as the book is relaunched to link to the TV series. Although much of the writing in this book is essentially "knocked-out", it still illustrates Gaiman's amazing ability to communicate with us. I think it is really for true fans only.

[Sergey Selyutin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meant for die-hard Gaiman fans, such as yours truly. And even die-hard fans had better borrow this book from the library and save their hard-earned money to buy proper Gaiman books, and not this hodge-podge of nonfiction with a sprinkling of fiction and poetry unique to this particular collection.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating look at writing from a writer's perspective. While there are a few poems and stories, the book centers around essays, introductions, and a vast excerpt from his blog during his proofing/touring for American Gods. I found him witty, erudite, and always in a good humor about life. Most of all, on nearly every page I learned something new and interesting, about writing, publishing, traveling, or best of all, the many authors Gaiman knows. Far too many things I would like to mention than I ever can, but you can see for yourself: NeilGaiman.com, click on journal. All of the archives are there still, if you care to peruse. Obviously being a daily journal, it isn't very cohesive, but that doesn't detract from the funny and amazing things he thinks up.

Best of all is that Gaiman, who admitted that he couldn't keep a journal and kept saying that it would only be going until the tour was over and the rest of the site was up, was thoroughly hooked by the end. He's still going very strong, and in fact, the entries are longer and more frequent than in the first few months.

I think Gaiman fascinates me so much because he keeps his wry outlook on everything around him, even when rushed and tired. I love storytellers, and he always finds a story to tell, always something (and when signing things for hundreds of fans, interesting is the word of the day) to relate for us, often strange and wonderous. He isn't the great explainer, like Asimov, but everything he touches seems steeped in history and mystery, and he can remind you of the magic and wonder in the world. Like his garden. Look in the blog for August 5 and September 2:
http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/agb...
http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/agb...

[Eugenia Andino · Rating 2 out of 5]

Es difícil puntuar este libro. Está concebido 100% solo para fans, al reunir una serie de escritos creados para ocasiones concretas (un diario de viaje, dedicatorias, introducciones alibros de otros autores). Entretenido si quieres tener TODO Gaiman, innecesario para cualquier otro lector.

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't want to be too critical about this, as there's really nothing wrong with it, but essentially, every part of this book belongs somewhere else. Introductions without the books they're introducing, song lyrics without music, and a blog without the internet. The blog takes up the most space, and is clearly the best thing about the book, but it's also available for free in its actual native habitat, with working links (http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2001/02...). That caveat aside, it's a fun, breezy read. It can be a little repetitive at times, but it's also weirdly compelling to revisit the internet circa 2001. It may not seem like a long time ago, but it's disturbingly primitive and a good reminder of just how much near-constant internet access has transformed my life.

The introductions are fine, and it seems like a nice idea to have a reference of the introductions written by one author in one place without having to track it down piece by piece. In practice, however, it's a good reminder of the fact that the average introduction (even by an author I like) is mostly pointless. They're like cheerleaders at a sporting event; you just assume you should have them, but they're at best little more than window dressing, and at worse, actually get in the way of the game. Reading them all in a row just makes them seem insincere (although they're probably not), and not having read all the books he introduces, it's tough to get a sense of how seriously to take him.

The poems and the song lyrics are ... fine, I guess. Given that he even says not to take them too seriously in his introduction, I think "fine" is as detailed as I need to get.

[***Dave Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Original review: http://hill-kleerup.org/blog/2008/04/...)

This is an odd little volume — odd in ways not the way you’d normally think of as a Gaiman book being odd — but quite enjoyable and eminently suited to small blocks of reading time.

Overall: Good
Writing: Good
Re-Readability: Good
Info: Faboo

This book is a collection of odds and ends. The first half or so is a collection of book introductions and afterwords and magazine articles written by Gaiman — all of which are entertaining, and all of which contain some interesting tidbit or twelve of info. Made me add a lot of books to my wish list.

That’s followed by some poetry and song lyrics, then the contents of Gaiman’s blog back when it was first started (2/9 – 9/27/2001) as a “here’s what life’s like waiting for American Gods to get published, and what sorts of things writers get/have to do besides just write.” It’s a fascinating look at book tours, signings, cover selections, galley proofs, differences between US and UK publishing, etc., and is worth the price of admission for anyone getting into the writing biz.

That’s followed by three ultra-short stories, and a small collection of “About the Author” blurbs, some (all?) of them written by Gaiman himself.

In short, it’s nothing like most of Gaiman’s works, but it remains a very personal work. And, as I said, one that’s very easy to put down and pick up again when one must/can.

[Marcel Monpatron · Rating 4 out of 5]

You could complain about the hodgepodge nature of the book, a collection of prefaces, poems, lyrics and blog (around the American Gods completion & promo). You could.

But it so happens that Neil Gaiman is a fantastic writer of prefaces, which are brimming with love for the genres and authors it presents, and a warm and funny storyteller. So while the lyrics didn't make much sense out of context, I relished reading these bits and pieces which had kind of the same effect a warm blanket and a cup of tea would have on a boring rainy afternoon. It actually triggered a renewed interest in his work, reminding me why I loved it in the first place.