The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Non-Fiction

Enjoyed the read. Wide-ranging subject matter. His reminiscences of his first immersion into the world of books resonated with mine of about a decade earlier. That brought out smiles, pleasant memories and a reconnection to the child I once was who really did picnic with Ratty and Mole and was in total awe of Badger. Then the discovery of SF same authors. I still have every [or almost every] Moorcock novel in a box somewhere and then there was the comics! So for me worth the read for the trip down memory lane and my absolute first romance with reading. The meetings with writers or his thoughts on them were interesting. His music and mine don't cross over as basically I'm a child of the '60s, which a later generation [punk ?] considered stodgy and increasingly a “sell out”. May have been true but revolutions don't need to trash all of the past in pushing towards the future.
Interested in Neil Gaiman [and there are lots about him to be interested in] then a worthy read. But “View” comprises essays, vignettes written by Neil in his journalist persona or the transcripts of his public talks or introductions to other authors works. As such, they can only be pithy but interesting observations of his world, his art and the art he admires. Anyone who has not followed him listening for Wolves in Walls, crossing The Wall in search of a Star, stepping through Door's Doors, slipping into Dream following the Endless, investigating the lives in a Graveyard, or documenting the work of a Fixer employed by a God, may be disappointed. As he suggests stop reading go read the stuff above and come back to this. Then perhaps go read the wonderful Art of Neil Gaiman by Hailey Campbell.