See, I'm in the Coraline generation, but I actually didn't discover Gaiman's work until high school, when there was this friend of mine who just loved 'American Gods.' She built a large part of her life's philosophy around it, and I realized if I ever wanted to understand her and love her, then I'd have to read this book that's so important to her. So I did; it was wonderful. Now I'm kind of obsessed with his work, and she's one of my closest friends, so I suppose I owe two things to Mr. Gaiman.

Neverwhere was the book that made me want to do so many things. It was the first book I read where the author had merged urban setting and fantasy elements. Suddenly I was watching shadows as I walked home or would make up stories in my head about the strange crack in the building wall. Neverwhere will always be my favorite book of all time.

@Books_BrewsandBeyond

4 жыл бұрын

Would you recommend neverwhere as it is on my list

Neil Gaiman, you are wonderful and I appreciate your writing.

@ninfarose

4 жыл бұрын

I subbed you. I agree

Total cliche, but The Lord of the Rings blew my mind. I was 12 years old and enchantment had drained out of the world for me, but I still wondered. Then I read those books and realized I wasn't the only one who still believed in wonders beyond my everyday life, that a middle-aged WWI veteran Oxford don did too.

@Fear_the_Nog

7 жыл бұрын

you were 12 and had enchantment drained out of the world for you? TWELVE?! I was still headspun by the concept of ice-cream at 12....

@squamish4244

7 жыл бұрын

I was a shy, bookish, anxiety-ridden 12-year-old who had already developed a pretty solid materialistic paradigm of the universe ("It's going to burn out eventually and we might as well have never existed" etc.) and had read far too much about war, the Holocaust and human cruelty and inhumanity. Yeah, I was that kid.

@Fear_the_Nog

7 жыл бұрын

well I hope you're.....better now? I mostly cared about eagerly waiting for Saturday Morning Cartoons when I was 12.....it's a bit hard to wrap my mind around a 12 year old being jaded. But it's a good thing I suppose to have realistic expectations about life at a younger age. I read LOTR a bit later, at 17, when the movie came out, I was adult minded by that age but I wasn't jaded. Don't think I am now at 33. I still look at the clouds and find wonderment.

@squamish4244

7 жыл бұрын

Thanks. Things actually got a lot worse for a long time. It's a long story. I'm somewhat better now. I do know the materialist paradigm is complete bullshit and I never thought mythology would become so viscerally real as it is to me now. Take that however you want to take it :)

@Fear_the_Nog

7 жыл бұрын

I'm glad for you. Mythology is awesome. I've learned to take things as they are, with the aim that people can always make them better, if they want to. I've weathered through much crap in my life with that philosophy. I hope it keeps working for me

I read Coraline and Neverwhere ages ago but I read Anansi Boys recently and absolutely LOVED it. I'd also seen the Stardust film but didn't know there was a book till recently. I really got hooked though when I heard his voice. It's just so magical and now I read as much Gaiman as I can find.

I'd heard of Gaiman, I suppose, when the Neverwhere TV show appeared but it was omly when he teamed up with Terry Pratchett on Good Omens that I clocked him as someone I should read. Then I started reading Anansi Boys on a rain soaked holiday in Portugal and I haven't looked back since.

I was born in to the Sandman generation of Gaiman fans, and sadly skipped the Coraline generation entirely, but I have passed copies of Instructions on to three different sets of young readers belonging to friends and relations. With any luck, Neil will be meeting them in a few years.

Coraline is one scary book for a 7 year old!

Coraline brought me in.. American Gods kept me.

Excelent book by Neil Gaiman...The Graveyard book its an beautiful book..excellent write up by Neil Gaiman...The graveyard book

Good Omens generation!

nice video

Who wants to see coraline sequel

Hey Neil where do you get your ideas from?

@lizziebkennedy7505

Жыл бұрын

LOL.

Been following Neil since 96' most of you where in diapers. His best in my opinion, Sandman, Neverwhere, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, The Graveyard book.

Who’s LOLing at this in 2024?

#CoralineGeneration

Sandman trumps his books.

too bad CS Lewis died when Neil was like 3.

@lizziebkennedy7505

Жыл бұрын

So? he’s making a hypothesis.