Last night, courtesy of the lovely people at Bloomsbury, I attended the UK launch of Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book. Very aptly the party was held in the crypt of St Martin's in the Field, and the atmosphere was completed by the presence of various 'ghosts' mingling amongst the guests. Mr Gaiman was, once again, a consumate professional, and signed endlessly for the various book people in attendance - and much to my delight the two illustrators (One book title, two versions, one illustrated for adults and one for children, one by Dave McKean and one by Chris Riddell) were there, and I managed to get my copies signed by them too!
Danny - who may comment later - and I had earlier in the evening been at Waterstone's on Piccadilly to attend the launch of another wonderful book, this time the launch of Amnesty International's celebration of 50 years of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights - We Are All Born Free. We watched the wonderful short video that's being shown in cinemas and looked at all the glorious illustations - each Right was assigned to a different illustator and so the book is a wonderful mix of styles, which somehow really keeps you focused and keyed in to the message. As an aside, my favourite is Jane Ray's - just because the style is so unlike the one she is famous for!
Anyway, Danny had also found an absolutely spot-on Shelley quote for The Graveyard Book, and I showed it to Neil Gaiman, who loved it. Now I simply have to email to Ian at Bloomsbury who, being a nice chap, will forward it for me. All in all? A lovely evening - though I am now very tired. I always forget at launches - don't drink the wine until AFTER the food!
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11 years ago
2 comments:
Would have loved to have been at both launches, though sometimes London seems such a long way away and somehow I just could not drag myself away from home to go. I love the Jane Ray painting too. Suh a difficult theme to portray and she did it o excellently. And my favorite is the Chris Riddell as I love the expression on the dinosaur's face.
And how I would have loved to have met Neil Gaimon. Stardust was one of my favorite reads from last year.
Still, walking in sunshine on a cold hill with the call of ravens filling the air more than made up for missing London.
Love from Jackie, and the gingercats too
Gosh, I can totally see why you live where you do! London has its moments, but I'm deeply envious of your ravens...
So glad you like Gaiman too. He is amazing. Intelligence is always attractive, but intelligence allied with a stunning imagination and the ability to write like a dream? Well, as I said, I am a total fangirl!
Mind you, I feel pretty much the same about Chris Riddell... which leads me to suspect I might not be very good at professional dispassion!
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