It didn't take me until the official reveal, but I too felt like an idiot when I made the connection and realized it had been in plain sight the whole time.

Sandman. Start with Sandman.

Well, okay, that's my purist reaction. The Graveyard Book may be a good place to start.

P-C, Amy -- have you read The Ocean at the End of the Lane? Because it's quick and accessible as hell. I almost feel like telling her to start with that.

Hey, will one of you who has read The Ocean at the End of the Lane give me a general rating for the emotional gut-punchiness of it? I love Neil's writing, but I've seen some comments that the book can be emotionally wrenching around the ideas of the helplessness of childhood, and that's kind of a loaded topic for me nowadays.

(Yes, I have the book and I haven't read it yet. Crazy, I know.)

Hm. Jilli, I didn't really get that from the book at all, but that doesn't seem like something that would ping me.

Jilli, without spoiling the plot, there's some threat of helplessness, but it ends up not happening. But you have to get through the spooky-ass threats and such to get to the point where it doesn't actually happen. There was maybe one moment where I kind of went "Nooooo no no, do NOT do that," in response to a threat, and almost put the book down, but then the threatened thing didn't happen.

Is there any thread or refrain of the main character feeling like they can Fix All The Things, or that they need to be responsible for Fixing All The Things? That's pretty much a sure-fire trigger to a bad headspace for me nowadays.

(On the one hand, therapy has been very helpful for me. On the other hand, there are times when I think not investigating my baggage was a totes okay coping strategy, because doing so has made me hyper-aware of some things in the media I like.)

I don't think so, Jilli. Now that you've made your trigger more specific, I'm a little more certain it's not in there. But I did read the book very fast and was more focused on the fantasy/horror aspects.

Well heaven knows I will glom onto the horror aspects with glee, so I'm feeling reassured about the book. Thank you, I will read it once I get through this work week!

Jilli, no on your most recent whitefont. The narrator is well aware that he is incapable of fixing the problem. I was terrified for him at several points, even though the book starts off with him as an adult having obviously lived through the events of the book.

I'm currently listening to the audiobook of The Ocean at the End of the Lane and it is even better hearing Gaiman read it.

Tea:

I had a customer come in to the library bookstore when I was volunteering the other day looking specifically for fantasy novels, and I tried to steer her toward the Gaiman novels we have on the shelf when she told me that she read one of Gaiman's novels and didn't like. I honestly couldn't think of a thing to say to her after that.

regarding ereaders. I love my Nook, but the interface to organize things is highly annoying. I've got lots of shelves, but I know of no way to organize those shelves without having to do all the moving on the Nook itself. Are Kindles any better at organizing things? I've been thinking for a while about upgrading my ereader, and I'd like to stay with Nook--yay, no restrictions on formats!--but if the Kindle will organize things easily I'll have to do some serious thinking. Alternately, have I been missing the wonderful app that will organize things? I use Calibre for managing the library, but I haven't seen a way to organize things on the Nook.