The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction

Neil Gaiman is like a best friend that you've never met, but will one day, and I fully intend to soon. He has a heart that gazes on life with sheer fascination, and an imagination that is nothing short of magic. In this collection of non-fictions from Neil, you'll be given a glimpse into the mind of imaginative perspective. Everything from his thoughts on writing, making art, and why creators create is here. Plus you get glimpses into people that have impacted his life in significant ways, such as Terry Pratchett and his wife Amanda Palmer. You'll travel with him to the rich and famous Oscars and the most destitute of the poor in Syrian refugee camps. You'll laugh and you'll cry, and if you really pay attention to his stories you'll be a better person for having done so. I would say that's true of all his stories, whether fact or fiction. Neil is a good man to have for a friend, because he makes good art.

The un-essential Neil Gaiman.

I'm not trying to be mean; this is by the author's own admission a collection of odds and ends. The problem is really that there are few essays or critiques and most of the works therein are the intros to other people's books. Okay, but not particularly engaging. An interesting read for fans, but I doubt you'll take it cover to cover.

I didn't realize it was possibly to be simultaneously deeply self-indulgent and also selfless, but that's what we have here. I just can't in good conscience recommend this book. It's selections of introductions to other works, speeches, verbal introductions and other miscellany. Two objections stand out: firstly, few readers will be familiar with all of the works discussed (or even a majority). It's quite dull to read an introduction to a book that you have never read and don't have access to, quality of writing notwithstanding. Secondly, in general, a collection of essays always wants for strong editing, especially when the topics of the essays are overlapping. In one case this was done, but in the others there are numerous redundancies – sometimes entire paragraphs lifted from one to the other.

That said, if you look at this as an encyclopedia of Stuff Neil Gaiman Recommends, it becomes more useful – I know I will seek out several of the introduced books here.

Finally an extra star entirely for the moving essays about Diana Wynne Jones. I have long found their friendship extremely touching. Gaiman has never wavered in his admiration of her and even when his fame far outstripped hers he advocated for her.

It says a lot of good about Neil Gaiman that he used this fame-backed ploy to talk up his own favorite books, regardless of their own fame. Nonetheless, it is a fame-backed ploy.