“Does it work? Are they happier dead?”
“Sometimes. Mostly, no. It’s like the people who believe they’ll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn’t work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you, if you see what I mean.”
Source: Neil Gaiman
Gaiman, Neil: The Graveyard Book
2008“Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a perfectly normal boy. Well, he would be perfectly normal if he didn’t live in a graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor the world of the dead.”
Gaiman, Neil: Unnatural Creatures
2013“Unnatural Creatures is a collection of short stories about the fantastical things that exist only in our minds—collected and introduced by … Neil Gaiman. …The magical creatures range from werewolves to sunbirds to beings never before classified. E. Nesbit, Diana Wynne Jones, Gahan Wilson, and other literary luminaries contribute to the anthology.”
Gaiman, Neil: Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances
2015“In this new anthology, Neil Gaiman pierces the veil of reality to reveal the enigmatic, shadowy world that lies beneath. Trigger Warning includes previously published pieces of short fiction–stories, verse, and a very special Doctor Who story that was written for the fiftieth anniversary of the beloved series in 2013–as well ‘Black Dog,’ a new tale that revisits the world of American Gods, exclusive to this collection.”
Gaiman, Neil: The Sandman
1989–1996A graphic novel series about Dream, a.k.a. Morpheus, a.k.a. the Sandman. Or it’s about stories. Or reality. Or are those so different? If, like me, you love a good myth or fairy tale – the true ones, delirious and awful and mystifying and real, not the bubbly Disney sort – you want to read Gaiman’s work.
Gaiman, Neil: The Ocean at the End of the Lane
2013“[F]ollows an unnamed man who returns to his hometown for a funeral and gets caught up in events that began forty years earlier. Themes … include the search for self-identity and the ‘disconnect between childhood and adulthood’.”
Gaiman, Neil: Norse Mythology
2017“Neil Gaiman has long been inspired by ancient mythology in creating the fantastical realms of his fiction. Now he turns his attention back to the source, presenting a bravura rendition of the great northern tales.”
Gaiman, Neil: Neverwhere
1996Novelization of his TV serial of the same name. “…the story of Richard Mayhew and his trials and tribulations in London. At the start of the story, he is a young businessman, with a normal life. All this changes, however, when he stops to help a mysterious young girl…”
Gaiman, Neil: Coraline
2002“It was a story, I learned when people began to read it, that children experienced as an adventure, but which gave adults nightmares. It’s the strangest book I’ve written, it took the longest time to write, and it’s the book I’m proudest of.” (Gaiman)
Gaiman, Neil: Anansi Boys
2005“Fat Charlie Nancy’s normal life ended the moment his father dropped dead on a Florida karaoke stage. Charlie didn’t know his dad was a god. And he never knew he had a brother.”