Firstly, condolences to the family, friends and fans of John Updike, who has passed away at the age of 76. A great writer will be sorely missed.
On a happier note, congratulations to Neil Gaiman on his book “Graveyard” winning a Newbery award. Yeah, I know. It does seem a bit incongruous that the king of obscure horror would win the quintessential Children’s book award. I think I might wait a couple of years before I start addding that to the missus’s collection…
Addendum: I didn’t realize that he had also written “Coraline” – which you might have seen the trailers for on tv quite a bit recently. So if you aren’t familiar with him (BUT you really should be – Neverwhere is a great place to start) that can perhaps explain my… slight bemusement. But hey, props given where props due.
Hi,
The book is called The Graveyard Book, and out of all his books and comics none of them are really horror. Fantasy with scary bits sometimes yep
Have fun
Speak for yourself, dearie. As a self-professsed ’scairdy cat (I still can’t even think about Gremlins), it’s horror to me. I guess kinda like King lite? I said obscure horror mainly because. as you said, there is nothing really overtly horrific in his books. Which in some cases is even scarier. Especially with my imagination…
Sad news about Updike. Great writer!
As for Gaiman, “Good Omens”, with Terry Pratchett, is another good place to start. A fantastic book that I read over and over.
Not scary at all, sweets.
Coraline was classic Gaiman. Freaky, hard to read and completely awesome. Loved NeverWhere, too. I got the DVD of it somewhere. Not as good as the book, of course, but pretty cool to watch after you’ve read it.
Good Omens! I completely forgot about that one. Love that book. Think I’ve actually bought it like three times, lol.
There’s a movie? I’ve only read the book and comics of Neverwhere. And let us not forget Stardust (thanks S for putting me onto that).
I bought Fragile Things a couple of months ago but haven’t yet gotten to it.
I’ll have a look tonight for the DVD and, if I find it, see if I can get it to you sometime.
Stardust was lovely (and unfortunately tainted by Hollywood).
Let us not forgethis masterpiece…. his run on Sandman!
Please, thank you.
I still liked the movie. It didn’t really match the book but on it’s own, not a bad fluff movie.
I am ashamed to say that I never read it. Heard of it of course but that’s all. *proceed with the admonishments*
Tut. Tut.