An Unexpected Post About Neil Gaiman

eil Gaiman.

Here's how it began.

Some years ago, I heard about him, probably through the Compuserve Books and Writers Community (of which, if I'm not mistaken, he used to be a member), and found some of his free short stories on his website (they're still there). They were interesting but not earth-shattering, so I let it go.

A couple of years ago, I borrowed Anansi Boys off a friend, but when I read the back, I realised American Gods came first (sort of), and I didn't own that. So Anansi Boys sat on that 180 books to read by 2015 list (down the side of the blog) for ages.

Until two weeks ago, when I went to pick up my mother at the airport, forgot to check the flight before I left the house, and discovered, once there, that the flight was delayed and that I'd have an hour to spend in the bookstore. Was looking (drooling) at all the books I wanted (I tallied up - if I'd bought them all, I'd have spent 150$ on about ten books), when I suddenly saw that they'd put American Gods on sale for 15$.

And that's when the current obsession started. I've already barrelled through American Gods and half of Anansi Boys. Unplanned, but timely, Jenny happens to be featuring Gaiman as mentor of the month, and has some thought-provoking posts on Why to Read Widely and Chapters In Which Something Happens.

On top of all that, Gaiman's got me listening to The Magnetic Fields again. Here're some linked sounds and images and words one after the other:

"The book of love is long and boring / No one can lift the damn thing up."

"daniel handler, who's the accordion player from the magnetic fields, was magically on hand to play us 'the book of love'" - Amanda Palmer, on marrying Neil Gaiman.

Amanda Palmer singing Radiohead's No Surprises:

Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer together in the bath:

In a recent blog post, Gaiman says, "I should go and write some more."

I think that's sound advice.