Wednesday, February 24, 2010


Imagine that

As a book reviewer and journalist who covers publishing, I sometimes think that everybody should read the same book I am, or, horrors, no one is going to be reading any books in the near future because they're all playing with their smart phones. Then I go to a Reading by a Famous Author -- Neil Gaiman as part of Naperville Reads -- and am seated in an auditorium with a thousand other people who like this author, and am enthralled to hear him read and it's all good. They sure sold a lot of books, too.
Gaiman reads his own work exceptionally well (OK, the English accent helps, but maybe he'll pick up a little ya-dere, hey-dere from living near Minneapolis) and is exceptionally able to write across media (scripts, prose, graphic novels) and audiences; he writes for kids and adults. In this day and age of narrowcasting to specific groups, he's broader than many and way more imaginative than most. Maybe the energy of his young fans was contagious, but imagination has energy too. A lot of us still and always love stories, never mind the form.

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