Neil Gaiman - 3 books that have changed my life
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- Опубликовано: 23 июн 2010
- www.neilgaiman.com/
www.thegraveyardbook.co.uk/
Neil Gaiman talks about 3 books that have changed his life.
Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book is the winner of the 2010 Cilip Carnegie Medal, the Newbery Medal and the Booktrust Teenage Book Prize 2009, and shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Award
Stunningly illustrated by Chris Riddell, who brings the ghouls, ghosts and hero wonderfully to life in this fantastic ghost adventure story, laced with menace and humour.
When a baby escapes a murderer intent on killing the entire family, who would have thought it would find safety and security in the local graveyard?
Brought up by the resident ghosts, ghouls and spectres, Bod has an eccentric childhood learning about life from the dead. But for Bod there is also the danger of the murderer still looking for him -- after all, he is the last remaining member of the family.
A stunningly original novel deftly constructed over eight chapters, featuring every second year of Bod's life, from babyhood to adolescence. Will Bod survive to be a man?
View more videos and browse Neil's books on Bloomsbury Publishing's website:
www.gaimanbooks.com/ 
Развлечения
The books he mentions
1) The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
2) Stormbringer by Michael Moorcock
3) Swamp Thing by Alan Moore
@Gaston Plair Don't enter that website. It's a scam site.
@@wedothingsmessyhere I think he was joking lol
Thank you!
Thanks
This is exactly what I need from videos! Somebody should mention the key points so that us lazy assess don’t have to watch the whole thing.
When I was 16 I borrowed the Fellowship of the Ring off my English teacher. English being my second language, I could hardly understand a word of it but my passion for fantasy was strong. I persevered, went on to study English at uni and setttled in the UK where I now teach English literature to native speakers. Never give up!
Interesting how people thrive when they don't have privileges. All this talk about privilege these days. Privilege makes people lazy often.
Incredible
@@MicahMicahel Agreed!
Oh my god that's very admirable, well done
Wow
Your dreams are too important to be scared away by your nightmares.
Thank you!! I needed a good quote. Is that yours? I'd like to give credit
@fynes leigh huh? do you mean we shouldn't have ambitions? You probably aren't saying we should be broken by life? Or do you mean we shouldn't daydream? What do you mean? You sound a bit Buddhist maybe? "Live in the moment and stop wanting things" is one of the main tenets of Buddhism.
@fynes leigh Humans that can't dream will just tap into other people's dreams. Our species is very attached to narratives of all types. Humans don't seem to be able to live without them. Without dreams life sounds bleak. The fact that you are interested in Neil Gaiman might mean you are 'drowning in dreams.'
You Sir, made my day with this comment. Thank you. I needed to hear this.
Is this a sandman quote? It just sounds like something that would come from that.
I love this guy. His love of fantasy, the power of the imagination and basic, good storytelling is infectious.
@trha2222 Then you should try listening to a recording of J.R.R. Tolkien speaking. Even his students at Oxford had trouble understanding him.
@trha2222 Compared to Tolkien, Gaiman is easy to understand. I remember once talking with a nice older guy from London on Boxing Day (30 or 35 years ago) and he said something to me. I honestly didn't understand him. I had to quietly ask his daughter, "What did your father say to me? I can't understand what he said." She smiled sympathetically and said, "Oh that's all right. He just said 'Merry Christmas and Happy New Year'." For me, it might as well have been in another language entirely -- and I don't usually have trouble understanding English accents (except some Cockney and northern English dialects like Yorkshire).
It's a shame that you can't enjoy Tolkien. The Two Towers is the book that changed my life.
I'm a simple man: I see Neil Gaiman talking about writing, I click "like". One of the most awesome authors alive, for sure.
He seems gay
It’s nice that he gave Ursula Le Guin a mention. She easily belongs in the top three.
Such a nice man!
I rang him up at an airport bookstore I was working at...
I had been saving up for a collector’s edition of The Sandman and was basically working my way through all of his books. So I got totally star struck and was too zapped to ask for an autograph! 🤩🤪🌪😓
He smiled nicely and when I was too short-circuited to take his money he just sat it on the counter and told me “Keep the change.”
🤣🤣🤣
I will never forget it!
this is such a sweet story i bet you will never forget that bhaha kinda just like howu said !!! he seems very very nice and charming in person as well oml im genuienly like in love with him oml
Best storyteller of this generation. One major reason being that he actually has so much story to tell and doesn't pad his books with useless prose
In 1971, when I was in the fourth grade a teacher gave me a copy of Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities. That book is forever cemented in my psyche and it turned me into a bibliophile.
An awesome book for sure
in 4th grade!! gah
I can honestly say that "One Fish Two Fish" changed my life. I know it sounds stupid but I am dyslexic and have a learning disability and despite being sent to special ed and my mom taking me to experts I just didn't pick up reading. When I was 8, my mom read it to me every single day for 6 months and that repetition just made something in my brain CLICK. I went from being unable to read to reading at a college level in about 3-4 years. After that I might say C.J. Cherryh's Cyteen series or her foreigner series. Her books are easy and fun to read but they present ideas that I never ran into any other place. The ideas were always subtle but important to the story. It trained my brain to look at things in different ways. I don't know if I could pick a third book. There are so many other options.
You had a good mum!
I too had dyslexia, it was my fifth grade teacher that showed me that there were books in the world, that would interest me. I think the book was called The Big Egg about a boy that had a pet dinosaur. But the book that would forever change the person I was and am is the Lord of the Rings.
It doesn't sound stupid at all, sounds like a good path.
That's not silly at all it's awesome!
is there any further meaning to the book other than its transformative power for teaching children to read?
He is an amazing writer.
The ocean at the end of the lane.
The graveyard book.
Coraline.
Neverwhere.
Stardust.
Good omens.
Odd & the frost gaints.
All great books. He is such a diverse writer. Not many people can write different genres so well.
This person was not designed to be anything but a writer. Amazing to witness
A friend and I once spent several hours discussing the parallels and contrasts between the Graveyard Book and the Jungle Books (mostly Kipling but Disney was brought up). We filled a couple of white boards with notes and diagrams. Then we introduced Lindskold's Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls book to the discussion and several more hours were spent. We wasted an entire day on it and it was glorious.
Raeg -it was not a wasted day
that seems like such a souyl ful and sweet branch of memories that is amaxing and awesome ! love to hear it keep it up !!!!!!!!! :>>>>
I’m almost finished with Neverwhere I can’t believe it took me so long to find this amazing writer! For people that don’t like to read try audiobooks because it’s a tragedy to not love books!
Neil is one of my favorite writers. And I absolutely love his voice.
He is interesting good men,thanks for Karolina.
The greatest gift I've ever received was a library card at age seven.
And a teacher who, when I started public school, at seven, realised my reading needs and compromised to not make me feel more "other", and awkward than I already did.
Same! The first book I ever borrowed was The Phantom Tollboth at 5. Then the same year, reading A Wrinkle in Time and the Narnia novels. Those all changed my life and helped me read at a college level before entering middle school. Then in high school I read Godel, Escher, Bach to continue my quest and later majored in math and music in college. Greatest piece of paper ever.
Reading his books made grim days seem cheerful. I consider myself privileged to be son of parents who looked for books to entertain me.
_The Sandman_ isn't just a piece of literature but actually a transcending experience. Don't know how Gaiman came up with the idea, I'm just glad he did.
Stormbringer... As a teenager I loved the Elric books.
Corum and Erekose were my introduction. Moorcock is a a legend.
The Narnia books did a similar thing to me as well. I remebered it as the film 'The lion, the witch, and the wardrobe' but then when I had bought the whole series, I realised 'The Magician's nephew' was the first in the series. That book in particular did something to me. There's something so magical and special but at the same time it's a bit eerie. It did scare me back then but it's one of those books you just can't forget.
Fun fact, Magician was written as the second to last book before Last Battle.
Almost as a "here's how it started" before it ended.
The written order is Lion, Caspian, Dawn Treader, Silver Chair, Horse, Magician, and Last Battle.
Sadly Susan of Narnia was never written.
I was actually sad when the books were put in the order CS Lewis wanted because I quite like realizing at the end of Nephew that Digory was the Professor. It felt like more of an “aha!!!” moment.
Lion the witch and wardrobe is a really great place for the series to start, I’m glad it was that way when I was growing up even if it was not what CS Lewis wanted.
@@FirionLeFleur this is the order I read them in. This was the original box set order too. Nephew should always be read after Wardrobe so those who love Narnia love the origins and the magic. Nephew is primarily London based, and while fun, the most exciting thing is the realizations at the end for those who read lion already.
@@lechanneldemysterieuxmante1807 agree a thousand times. It is much more magical to read them in published order rather than chronological.
i will forever insist on reading the Narnia books in publication order (or at the very least LWW first!!!)
Watchmen did for me what Swamp Thing did for him. It was unreal while grounded in reality and the topics and exploration of such huge ideas were done so well that I remember thinking about it still to this day. Isolation, futility, fate, love, and the human experience. All there. All wrapped up in a naked blue god. Brilliant and transcendent.
I think I, too, became a writer - or started becoming one - when I realized that someone had _written_ the book I was reading, that someone was MAKING me have the experience it was having. That was a big deal for me.
Certain sections of 'Watership Down' still make me anxious despite the fact that I read it every couple of years for the last three decades.
I love that he cited Alan Moore. Awesome.
Sandman got me through a tough time in my life. Also made me fall in love with comics all over again.
Elric of Melniboné: I discovered this series by Michael Moorcock when I was 15, then I read every book in that series. Then I read them again and again.
his voice is like floating on cool waves on the ocean while listening to some sad violin music....
Lol
Nothing sad. Full of light ....
You’re trying way to hard to sound “cool”.
The outsiders always been a classic legendary book to me, and it's always been there for people in highschool
He looks like young Alan Rickman
This is ten years old. Gaiman is almost 60 today.
Great looking guy and not the kind to lose it with age.
I am with him on the Narnia thing.
I bought the set as a young adult, having recalled a TV show in my childhood years.
It was not what got me started on reading for personal pleasure, but it was great, even as a young adult.
James Herriot - that's who got me into reading for the sake of enjoying a book.
Dr. Seuss/The Far side when little. The Phantom Tollbooth and Watership Down taught me that any music was possible, even the kind I made up. Stumbling into Ursula LeGuin and Neil Gaiman as an adult with a child taught me that books could still be as impactful and life-changing even when you’re grown up and somewhat practical on a daily basis. Thank you 🙌
I hear his voice as Morpheus everytime I read Sandman
Strangely, I somethimes think that Neil Gaiman looks like Sandman - it would be more rational to think the opposite, but that's what enthralling writing does to the mind. And Neil Gaiman's voice is wonderful. I'm so glad for every and any story he reads out loud. (Graveyard Books read by the author = pure bliss.)
Nah. Neil's voice is too mellow, and too prone to various pauses and "uhms". I like to think of Morpheus' voice as more bitter; not necessarily sarcastic, but certainly with more of a sharpness to it. I can't imagine Gaiman sounding genuinely threatening.
@@Julia-lk8jn He usually models at least one of his characters after himself. It's noticeable in a few other books of his. That's why Sandman and him look so alike.
I hear it but if you have echoes happening in his speech, this type of resonance that echoes his timeless age, almost an eldritch yet whimsical musical tone, seemingly made of dreams
Morpheus is based on himself,it's told in absolute edition,the dressing,hairdo ,style of speaking is all his own
born to write
You had me at "Alan Moore's Saga of the Swamp Thing". Actually you had me at "The Lion the With and the Wardrobe" but you don't stop when you're ahead, Neil!
Neil Gaiman's "One Life Furnished In Early Moorcock" is one of the best Elric stories ever written
The Chronicles of Narnia did the same thing for me, but I didn't know they existed until i was ten. My teacher had a rotating bookrack in our classroom full of books for kids to borrow and i read every single one of the books on it, starting with the Chronicles of Narnia. And i still love to read and write, 30 years later.
Neil I concur with your sentiment. Books were my best friend whilst I was a child. Even now having grown up I will often lie on our sofa in the winter with a roaring fire reading for hours, until it is dark outdoors. Or in our hammock in the summer. My idea of heaven my darling Husband will lie next to me perfectly quiet just to hear me read aloud. For my friends on one day near their birthday I spend the afternoon reading their childhood books aloud to them. I did this when we were Uni when we were stony broke, and it still gives me pure joy.
An inspiring book list from Professor Snape.
When he named Stormbringer by Michael Moorcock I think I actually swooned... LOL!
Me too!!!
And now Moore is a fan of gaiman. Nice to see that reciprocal creativity
Narnia was the first foreign (English in specific) movie I ever watched. Being an 4 year old Indian, it was hard to understand what it really meant but I loved it, it was like a Big Band in my mind and opened up a whole new universe to me.
Then 3 years later, I watched and read something that solidified and shaped the matter generated by that Big Bang, I saw Lord of the Rings.
And I think that if not for LOTR I would have never read or took interest in comics like Sandman, Miracleman or All Star Superman, which I love with the very depth of my heart and soul.
Huh. I've always loved those Swamp Thing issues and regarded it as the best thing Alan Moore wrote, but I never knew that it was what got Gaiman into comics writing. Excellent.
Wow! The CS Lewis set was my 7th birthday present too! And I own all the three books he mentions. No wonder I relate to Neil's work so much.
Nice to have a positive book influence like that.
Even Fantasy is a mirror of the "Real" world.
My picks:
1. a wizard of earthsea by Ursula le guin
2. Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C Clarke
3. The silmarillion by Tolkien.
Great picks!
I was watching another one of your videos and thought about purchasing "The Chronicles of Narnia." Thanks for the videos.
is it just me or does he seem on the verge of tears the whole time?
Thank you, Neil Gaiman, & thank you, Bloomsbury Publishing, for posting or uploading onto the net this short film. I look forward to conveying to you my upcoming manuscript on a folk hero character who struggles to overcome incredibly harsh & sustained hardships & catastrophe to become... Well, we'll see, I pray. More to be revealed; may this be so.
I've never read Alan Moore's swamp thing issues but it's only seemed like that would be one of the last titles I would associate with his style of work. I'm going to have to read them one day.
just finished swamp thing and my head exploded. I can't say enough how good it is. Brilliant!
Chris Gagnon that was Allan moore's thing, not gaiman
He is amazing! He is born to write.
The Sandman definitely changed my life, and Elric too
I love how three books quickly turn into hundreds.
i loved the lion the which and the wardrobe, as a kid before that The Magic Faraway Tree and all those Enid Blyton books....these books put me on a psychedelic path before i had encountered psychedelics
Wow, it seemed he was gonna cry when he started to talk about the Swamp Thing
I looooooooooove "the graveyard book" it is such an amazing book!!! Its like tim burton's "Corps Bride " its soooo dark and all the characters that one meets.. Truly a classic
Ricki figueira I read The Graveyard Book in elementary school and liked it; I didn’t think it was scary at all. Looking back, it probably bended my mind wonderfully to how it was meant to be.
I loved the graveyard book. I highly recommend reading "the ocean at the end of the lane" by him. It was amazing I literally kissed the book when I finished reading it 😅
@@misspopcoin2204 I did. I love it. The whole father and Nanny thing.
@@rickifigueira3503 I was a bit weirded out by that too. & how he almost drowned the main character really got my heart racing. Even though I knew he was under some sort of mind control, I.was still shocked.
I was not expecting Swamp thing. Fascinating.
The truth about reading is that it is the only possibility ever to talk/listen to people more intelligent than oneself constantly on demand.
Because friends tend to be on the same level. When we are lucky we have different interests, talents and can communicate them.
The only difficulty concerning books is of course to find the right ones. A higher level but still understandable.
Classical novels have the advantage that they offer something for every age. Their contents change with the maturing of the reader.
I used my allowance to buy coloring books with stories since the age of 6 . My friends had to hide their parents libraries because i'd grab a book and spend our "playtime" reading . I'm 27 Doctor now and books are till my fav thing in this whole entire world
You were a bloody advanced reader to read those at 7.
No wonder ur such a great writer.
Laugh,
Quite amazing what very little tv and no internet does.
I was born in 1962. I t was a bit of a relief to get to school and find out there where books with titles other than a descriptive history of the British empire. or the complete works of shakie in 15 volumes. I still hate dickens.
Janet and John and spot, were a bit of a mystery. Okay I read it, now what
Oh read it again out loud, explain it ok
I think quite a lot o people end up like I did, totally bored with adults not realising you do know things already and to boring to be worth listening to for the the things you do not know.
Mr. Gaiman is a Narnia-fan! Awesome!
so?
The author of a book that changed my life (Good Omens), talking about the books that changed his life. Nice.
Silly school boy ideas ended up being my favorite works that I still go through, read, and edit. I loved the way I wrote back then
I think The Grapes of Wrath had a really big effect on me when I first read it
I had to pause and reflect on the fact that if he hadn't picked up that copy of 'Saga of the Swamp Thing' we may have missed out on Sandman and been all the poorer for it.
Wow. I read the Chronicles of Narnia, at around age 9-10, and also read "Stormbringer" very soon after. Loved the darkness of Moorcock. (I don't know where the copy of Stormbringer came from, but I still have it.) Then, on a family trip, I randomly bought a copy of Stephen R. Donaldson's "Lord Foul's Bane". I read and re-read the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant many times. And so, I was off to the races with dark stories and deeply flawed heroes. It's shaped my world view ever since.
I love how the first book was seven books.
On the other occasion, he said it was miracleman, written by Alan Moore too, that made him realize comics could also be a great medium to deliver something fundamentally great, which eventually lead to him writing sandman.
the 3 books that changed my life, Kurt Vonnegut Sirens of Titan, ( At age10) Tolkien's The Hobbit ( Age 12), and Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey ,(Age 35)
Im an old woman and read loads of classics and history, but have a sweet tooth for Michael Moorcock dating from my teens, but I still read him.
Neil is as good a public speaker, as he is an author. His slow paced way to speak is relaxing.
I love this video because it reminds me that you *can* find what you love and that you *can* build a life around that thing.
Neil gets it. Especially his comments on swamp thing
I think, for me, the three books that influenced me the most were: "The Silmarillion" by J.R.R. Tolkien, "Dragonsong" by Anne McCaffrey, and "The Bourne Identity" by Robert Ludlum.
If I could add some more, I would at least add (not in any particular order): "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte, "The Matarese Circle" by Robert Ludlum, "The Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkien, "Anne of Green Gables" by Lucy Maud Montgomery, "Dragonsinger", "Dragonflight", and "The White Dragon" by Anne McCaffrey, "The Birthgrave", "Don't Bite the Sun", and "Drinking Sapphire Wine" by Tanith Lee, the Diadem saga by Jo Clayton, "Sharra's Exile" by Marion Zimmer Bradley, "R is for Rocket" and "S is for Space" by Ray Bradbury, the robot stories and the first three Foundation novels by Isaac Asimov, "Lord Valentine's Castle" by Robert Silverberg, the Elric series by Michael Moorcock, the Xanth books and the first three Phaze books by Piers Anthony, most of the short stories and books by Robert Heinlein, and the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis. And that's still just scratching the surface.
Philip Clayberg: And that matters to us why?
Anne McCaffrey. 🙌
I could listen to NG talk about books and writing for eternity.
I KNEW he was going to mention Michael Moorcock. Love to know what Gaiman thinks of the Out of the Silent Planet trilogy, also by CS Lewis. Long overdue for a screen adaptation imo.
Agreed. I'd love to see Perelandra on-screen.
This was 5 minutes long but seemed like an hour.
Is that a good or a bad thing haha
Our tastes were very similar at those ages. No wonder I love Gaiman's work.
I liked "The Silver Chair" and "The Magician's Nephew" most.
The Magicians Nephew is my favourite along with The Horse and His Boy!
This video started and my mind thought it was the beggining of an audiobook
I spent my childhood reading Narnia as well then as I grew older I read Neil Gaiman’s comics That have touched me and made who I am today
Wonderful talk.
Ive recently started to collect alan moore swamp thing and they are amazing. Im only 14 issues from a complete set. Of course 2 of those issues (21 and 37) are worth a total of at least 500 american, but the whole run is amazing
Thank you. This is inspiring..
He is so awesome
My three books:
The Witches by Roald Dahl, for showing me that things aren't always what they seem, and a little bit of mischief and rebelliousness aren't always a bad thing...
Nation, by Terry Pratchett, for helping me realize that I wanted to write,
Pet Semetary, by Stephen King, for helping me find the ghosts in the mundane and everyday.
It is so difficult to ask a reader to name only 3 influential books!!! An impossibility really.
This guy is one of my heros.
Wow. Neil Gaiman and I have something in common. We both read and were impressed by Michael Moorcock's Stormbringer when we were young.
Wow. Voyage of the dawn treader was always my fav CS Lewis book.
Stormbringern... man. Wow. Just wow.
My favourite book ever is Perelandra by Lewis.. :)
Mr. Gaiman, please, please, please become the showrunner for Doctor Who.
We are desperate for good stories!
The Graveyard Book and Neverwhere are my two Gaiman favourites. i read The Narnia series in my teens , Moorcock in my 20s( really good) and have only just got into graphic novels. so always a decade or two behingd the eightball
Its cool to think that Whatever happened to the Caped Crusader is an homage and thanks to Alan Moore for his Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow. Both of them are some of my favorite writers ever.
I am eagerly awaiting The Graveyard Book to be developed into a movie. But only if Neil is involved because it is such a wonderful book, that it can easily be mishandled as a movie.
No criticism but .... oh how I hate it when people say they "I was given a copy of .... whatever ... Swallows and Amazons, The Wind in the Willows, War and Peace, 'A la recherche du temps perdu' when I was three (or some impossibly early age) and I was captivated". Maybe it's true but ... it's such a discouraging thing to say because we all instantly think we might as well give up. I remember someone or other saying she read 'Pride and Prejudice' when she was eight, and ... actually, assuming you have the reading skills to slog through it, what on earth would you get out of it? You don't have the life experience, the emotional equipment, or the knowledge of relationships to be able to understand the motives of the characters.
So just for thickies like me, I'll admit that I didn't come to Wind in the Willows until I was an adult. As a child I read Billy Bunter, the William books, and Jennings and Derbyshire. (it was a long time ago!) And in spite of my obvious backwardness, I did manage to publish a couple of books eventually. So ... no slur on the talented Mr Gaiman, but the fact that you DIDN'T read 'The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' when you were two, shouldn't be allowed to put you off!
Don't feel bad about the place in your life were reading took hold. I have dyslexia and learned to read to myself in the summer after third grade. I was horse crazy and read the full collection of Chincoteague Ponies books. Prior to that luckily my mother and grandmother read to me. Eventually I became an avid reader.
I basically agree with you. Reading books like War and Peace at such a young age is amazing, but I really doubt a 5 year old had enough life experience to really appreciate them. I think the first book I ever read was Bambi (about a Deer or actually a Doe don't remember for sure) by I don't know who, and didn't really begin to like books until I was around 13 or 14. But, after that-- !!
Gaiman likes Moorcock. What a pun. American Gods is in my top three books that changed my life.
+Cosmo Sher Lmao! I see what you did there
+Cosmo Sher Me, too. I've often thought that American Gods had the same effect on me as Swamp-Thing had on him.
That is one of the funniest comments I've seen on RUclips :-) I hope Neil Gaiman read it. I'm sure he laughed his socks off.
😂😂😂😂😂😂
@@davidcripps3011 I'm sure he's exhausted by the jokes about his sexuality on the basis of his surname.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is where it started for me.
When I read Charles Bukowski for the first time it changed the way I thought about writing.
Gaiman and I had almost the same reading list. Love CS Lewis and the great Michael Moorcock!!
In center school we read the graveyard book and coraline and the reading that you do is great