This weeks Top 10 Tuesday prompt is Books I’m Hoping Santa Brings. I’m adapting it just a bit to Books I’m Hoping Santa Brings into Existence because otherwise Santa’s told me, “You have zero self-control with books how is any one supposed to know what you don’t have!”
So below are some books I hope the elves getting cracking on in no particular order:
(Featuring celebrities & impossible books!)
Continue reading “10 Books I’m Hoping Santa Brings… Into Existence”
So with the holiday weekend coming up I was thinking about how hard it might be to get a chance to read and, for me at least, how I actually need to find opportunities to read when I’m stressed so I came up with a couple of recommendations for getting through a crazy busy stretch of days.
Book style.
The View from the Cheap Seats
Author: Neil Gaiman
Grade: A-
“Go where your obsessions take you.”
So I was looking for something a little different than my usual books lately and Gaiman is always a winner. This book of nonfiction covers a lot of things- a lot of different subjects. Some of it I had read before and there is a long stretch of book introductions in the middle that gets a little dull.
There is a very interesting and I think important article about honoring the Charlie Hebdo staff and the importance of free speech, including speech you don’t like. Which is something I noticed people are more and more intolerant to these days, especially on the Internet ironically enough.
However my favorite part was the beginning and whenever he talks about his love of stories, of reading, or words. He seems to remember every book he’s ever read which is amazing considering even now I have to keep a notebook to keep track. But it really made me think of the books that stand out to me from my childhood reading journeys.
“I was, and still am, on the side of the books you love.”
Me too.
There’s also a lot about the importance of fostering an actual love of reading- not just do it because you have to or because it will get you through school. And I’ve really been wracking my brain over this because as much as I love books, other than talking about them, and sharing recommendations I wouldn’t have any idea how to impart to a child a love of reading.
Although I did appreciate this quote; “Listen. If someone tells you what a story is about, they are probably right. If they tell you that that is all the story is about, they are very definitely wrong.”
(Hello 75% of my literature teachers. Well, there’s maybe something I would do to foster a love of reading. Change the way it’s taught in a lot of cases.) I’m still thinking about the bigger subjects brought up in this book. I also picked up a couple of book recommendations that I put on my endless TBR list. Book recommendations are always a bonus for me!
Recommend: Yes. Though if you are already a Gaiman fan you might have read some of it already.
The Art of Neil Gaiman
Author: Hayley Campbell
Genre: Retrospection
Grade: A
A little gift from me to me this year. It’s really a lovely book and I’ve been a Gaiman fan for a while now so when I saw this I wasn’t waiting for Christmas.
Campbell has known Gaiman since she was a child and she has excellent access. Which also makes the book feel very personal. She goes through all his work starting with journalism and ending with the recent Doctor Who episodes he’s written and radio programs. Gaiman has really done it all. Of course Sandman is talked about. It’s probably the most in-depth (comics overall) portion of the book.
It’s very much based on his work though you get a bit about his childhood and the personal things that, for him, have deeply affected his work. You might feel just looking at the written sections you aren’t getting a great deal of depth but combine that with the beautiful artwork and his thoughts on each piece and you really do get a clear picture.
Stardust was probably the book/movie that introduced me to Gaiman.
As someone who loves to write it was also great to get a behind-the-scenes look at so much of his process and how things have come together for him in different ways.
Recommend: Yes. Fans will love it but I also think aspiring writers/filmmakers or just any aspiring artist would appreciate the book and the stories in here.
I love Neil Gaiman but so far I’ve only ever read novels, Sandman and his children’s stories. When I saw this short story collection I jumped at buying it.
I have a way of working short story collections. If there is an author specific reason I bought it- I start there. If not I read shortest first, then go with what seems like the most interesting and then power through the longer. The best part of Trigger Warning is the Introduction which includes a description of each story in the book. That made that a lot easier.
What can I say?
It’s Gaiman you know? There’s a lot of weird crap and like a lot of short story collections tales that go absolutely nowhere and just leave you wondering about the point. Sleeper and Spindle is an interesting twist on the Sleeping Beauty story. I quite liked the story about the Uninventor who thinks he’s done with his work until he’s sitting in a café and everyone ignores him to check their IPhones- then he knows he has one last job.
There’s a Sherlock Holmes story involving bees that had kind of interesting implications and my favorite story- Nothing O’ Clock. A Doctor Who related tale that brought me back to the good old days when I could still bear to watch Doctor Who. And one about a guy who invented a fake girlfriend when he was in high school only to find out years later that she’s looking for him.
There was nothing that threw me off or I needed a trigger warning for- it’s Gaiman so of course there’s some weird stuff. A questionable landlady, a creepy fairy tale, strange places, strange people who don’t always get what they want. It’s a strange dream world these stories live in but there’s nothing that kept me up at night and honestly it’s pretty easy to get under my skin.
Recommend: I always enjoy Gaiman’s writing and his world. If you are a fan you’ve maybe read some or all of the stories before but this is an excellent introduction to his work if you’re trying to make a fan out of a friend. So I would recommend the book and say share it!
