9780062262295
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The View from the Cheap Seats audiobook

  • By: Neil Gaiman
  • Narrator: Neil Gaiman
  • Category: Literary Collections, Speeches
  • Length: 15 hours 29 minutes
  • Publisher: HarperAudio
  • Publish date: May 31, 2016
  • Language: English
  • (12372 ratings)
(12372 ratings)
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The View from the Cheap Seats Audiobook Summary

An enthralling collection of nonfiction essays on a myriad of topics–from art and artists to dreams, myths, and memories–observed in #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman’s probing, amusing, and distinctive style.

An inquisitive observer, thoughtful commentator, and assiduous craftsman, Neil Gaiman has long been celebrated for the sharp intellect and startling imagination that informs his bestselling fiction. Now, The View from the Cheap Seats brings together for the first time ever more than sixty pieces of his outstanding nonfiction. Analytical yet playful, erudite yet accessible, this cornucopia explores a broad range of interests and topics, including (but not limited to): authors past and present; music; storytelling; comics; bookshops; travel; fairy tales; America; inspiration; libraries; ghosts; and the title piece, at turns touching and self-deprecating, which recounts the author’s experiences at the 2010 Academy Awards in Hollywood.

Insightful, incisive, witty, and wise, The View from the Cheap Seats explores the issues and subjects that matter most to Neil Gaiman–offering a glimpse into the head and heart of one of the most acclaimed, beloved, and influential artists of our time.

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The View from the Cheap Seats Audiobook Narrator

Neil Gaiman is the narrator of The View from the Cheap Seats audiobook that was written by Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of books for children and adults whose award-winning titles include Norse Mythology, American Gods, The Graveyard Book, Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett), Coraline, and The Sandman graphic novels. Neil Gaiman is a Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR and Professor in the Arts at Bard College.

About the Author(s) of The View from the Cheap Seats

Neil Gaiman is the author of The View from the Cheap Seats

The View from the Cheap Seats Full Details

Narrator Neil Gaiman
Length 15 hours 29 minutes
Author Neil Gaiman
Category
Publisher HarperAudio
Release date May 31, 2016
ISBN 9780062262295

Subjects

The publisher of the The View from the Cheap Seats is HarperAudio. includes the following subjects: The BISAC Subject Code is Literary Collections, Speeches

Additional info

The publisher of the The View from the Cheap Seats is HarperAudio. The imprint is HarperAudio. It is supplied by HarperAudio. The ISBN-13 is 9780062262295.

Global Availability

This book is only available in the United States.

Goodreads Reviews

Will

July 22, 2020

Once upon a time a writer sat in a large room and looked around. The words and papers that he had dreamed into existence had begun to clog the space. To get from his magic writing place to the world outside he had to push his way past words on stacks of paper that had grown so high that he was no longer able to see over the top to the door. Sometimes the lanes they had formed led him not to a door, but into a wall and he had to find his way back to the desk where he made the words, and start over. He began to wonder if the words had started shifting their locations while his back was turned, if they intended to keep him in his writing place, making more and more words and stories to keep them all company. One day a doll with button eyes that he kept on his desk stood up and told him that he really should do something about the growing menace if he wanted to be able to leave the room ever again. The writer was suitably terrified, and vowed to get right on it, concerned about the possibility that he was losing his shit. Neil Gaiman - from maskable I know nothing of Neil Gaiman’s living situation, of course. He may be the neatest person alive, a place for everything and everything in its place. Black shirt here, black pants there, black jacket over there. Another black shirt here, another black shirt here...While it is likely that his words are all nicely tucked away on hard drives, in clouds, on servers and disks of various ages and sorts, I envision stacks of paper hither and yon festooned with buzzing colonies of paper mites. Maybe his wife gives him the stink-eye about the piles, urging him to take some time and deal with the mess. So he bites the bullet one Saturday morning when the creative urge is at low ebb. He gathers a stack from here, a sheaf from there, and as I imagine anyone who writes might do, he reads some of the things he has written, some of them decades old. Not half bad, he might think, and he would be right. But in gathering all the material together, and now admiring the still dusty but paper free sections of floor that have become newly visible, and considering tying up all the paper for inclusion in the recycling bin, it occurs that they might be worthy of another form of recycling. Thus, newly energized, he begins to pore through the materials a second time, and in this pass, he makes three piles, keeper, on the fence, and toss, ties up the toss pile, and off to the bin it goes. Somehow the keeper and on–the-fence piles seem to magically move closer to each other until they are indistinguishable. The result is The View From the Cheap Seats, a compendium of mostly small bits from Gaiman’s large body of small non-fiction writings.They are divided into ten sections, but the fences bordering each are easily and frequently scaled. The largest element in the collection consists of introductions Gaiman has written for other writer’s books. They are all heartfelt, sometimes moving, and are infused with his personal experience of those writers, whether purely through their work, or, in many cases, through his relationships with them in the real world. I was reminded of Bill Clinton’s memoir, My Life, in which it seemed as if everyone he met had a huge and lasting impact on him. I am sure Gaiman means all the glowing things he says about the people he writes of here, but it does seem a bit much at times. Who didn’t impact your life?There are many speeches he has delivered, at commencements, at professional conferences, at award ceremonies. A fair bit of autobiography is tucked into the works, not enough to fill out a true version but enough to whet your appetite for more. He includes considerable advice on writing, both doing the actual writing, and coping with the external realities of writing professionally. I quite enjoy Neil Gaiman’s work (see linked reviews at bottom). He is a bright, articulate, thoughtful and creative sort. He has things to say and says them persuasively. But I have to concede that I enjoy Neil Gaiman the writer of fiction a fair bit more than I do Neil Gaiman, the writer of book intros, album liner notes, deliverer of commencement addresses and speechifier at sundry professional events. It is not that particular items included in this considerable compilation (I counted 84 individual pieces, but I could be off by a few) are not good. Most were at least somewhat interesting and a bunch were very interesting. Ok. A few were boring. There seems a redundancy to much of the material. I got the feeling one has on occasion after having listened to a song you really like about twenty times too many. The collection seemed too large, and would have been improved by some intelligent culling, down from over 500 to maybe 400 or even 350 pages. Gaiman is a prolific producer of product, very much like Stephen King (there is a nice interview with King in here) or Isaac Asimov (although he has nothing like Asimov’s range, not that anyone else does either). So even with such a large volume, odds are that there is material lying about to fill several more. So what are the upsides? Ok, you already know the guy is a pretty solid writer, so the quality of the writing is fine. Even though he is out of his power genre, he was a journalist and can crank out non-fic, no problem. He shares plenty of insights, particularly when making the case for the value of fantasy, although they sometimes sounded a bit emo: We who make stories know that we tell lies for a living. But they are good lies that say true things, and we owe it to our readers to build them as best we can. Because somewhere out there is someone who needs that story. Someone who will grow up with a different landscape, who without that story will be a different person. And who with that story may have hope, or wisdom, or kindness, or comfort. And that is why we write. He writes about works that and writers who have influenced him, whether those influences were TV Programs (Dr Who), writers of comics (Will Eisner), or of books (Harlan Ellison, and many others), of children’s or adult fiction. I enjoyed his observations of the writing experience. There are details in this collection that will definitely enhance your appreciation for how some of his well-known creations came to be, the what-ifs that sparked the process. I write to find out what I think about something. I wrote American Gods because I had lived in America for almost a decade and felt it was time that I learned what I thought about it. I wrote Coraline because, when I was a child, I used to wonder what would happen if I went home and my parents had moved away without telling me. He offers insights into some other works of his, for instance Sandman and The Ocean of the End of the Lane. I quite enjoyed his tale of attending the Oscars when Coraline was nominated, and had exactly no chance of winning. Gaiman, a pretty well-known sort, was relegated to the relatively cheap seats, even though Coraline had received a nomination. Another tale, of his work on the film Mirrormask and then attending the opening at the Sundance festival, had a lovely stranger-in-a-strange-land feel. He includes some interaction with musicians, notably Lou Reed. And one of the two pieces about his now wife Amanda Palmer was quite interesting for it’s look at the strains of coping with the together-all-the-time relationships inherent in going on the road. I enjoyed his straight-up autobio pieces, including his childhood reading experiences and fondness for comics.You will come away from Cheap Seats with a nice list of authors you may want to check out, the product of the laudatory intros Gaiman wrote for books by or about them. I guarantee that, despite the considerable stack of household names, some of the writers he notes here will be new to you. There is enough good and very good material in the collection to justify checking it out. Even if you find yourself in a piece that might dull the senses, the next piece is only a couple of pages away and could be quite good. Neil Gaiman has done pretty well for himself and deservedly so. So one must take with a grain of salt a view from such a successful guy that purports to be from the cheap seats. Gaiman is a top notch author and if he is looking at the world from the cheap seats any place but at the Oscars he is probably slumming. You will definitely enjoy much of what is included in this large collection. But there is enough that seems duplicative, in tone if not always in content, that it keeps the collection from being quite row five, orchestra center.3.5 rounded up to 4Published 5/31/16Review first posted – 6/3/16=============================EXTRA STUFFLinks to the author’s personal, Twitter, FB and Tumblr pagesI also reviewed Gaiman's -----Stardust, briefly, a few back-----The Graveyard Book more fully in October 2012.-----The Ocean at the End of the Lane in August 2013-----Trigger Warning in March 2015Other bits by the author----- Gaiman’s advice on writing -----A talk for The Long Now Foundation - How Stories Last -----Gaiman’s author pep talk for NaNoWriMo

Lee Ann

August 04, 2016

After reading this book, I wonder if I've been missing out all these years because I usually skip introductions. But then again, this is Neil Gaiman we're talking about, and I've never encountered one of his until now. To be fair, Gaiman is one of my favorite authors ever. I feel about him the way I did about C.S. Lewis as a kid. Thanks to his Twitter feed and his blog, I've picked up books based on the authors he's mentioned, so it was cool to recognize some of those people along this particular journey."The View From the Cheap Seats" isn't all book introductions, but it is all non-fiction, and it's great stuff. His speeches are in here, as well as articles he's written over the years. I've learned what feels like loads more about him, and my to-read list has grown scary-large.Pick this up if you're a fan of Gaiman's work. Pick this up if you're looking for more books to read. Pick this up if you need some inspiration and art in your life. Just pick it up.

Sean Barrs

October 23, 2017

“Fiction can show you a different world. It can take you somewhere you've never been. Once you've visited other worlds, like those who ate fairy fruit, you can never be entirely content with the world that you grew up in. Discontent is a good thing: discontented people can modify and improve their worlds, leave them better, leave them different." I have so much respect for Neil Gaiman. I don’t like everything he writes, though I do believe he is one of the most talented writers alive today. Gaiman is funny and smart. Gaiman is wise and creative, but most importantly he is multi-talented. His books appeal directly to children, though he is far from being just a children’s author. He writes fantasy, though I would not call him a fantasy novelist. Gaiman is Gaiman. I think his real success resides in his mastery of tone and his ability to switch between the serious and the silly, sometimes using both at the same time. For me though, I absolutely love the way his books appeal to young people and have the ability to get people seriously into reading; yet, none of their literary merit is sacrificed in the process. He is undeniably a master of the craft. This book has a huge selection of non-fiction pieces in. One of my favourites was his energetic and highly compelling lecture on libraries and why they are so important for society. Before Gaiman was a writer, he was a reader. Not just your standard type of reader, those who just read in one genre or a few books a year, but the kind that reads everything and anything. By the sounds of things, he spent most of his childhood reading in his local libraries. Clearly this has given him enough knowledge to tackle huge themes within his writing. Start young folks! “You don’t discourage children from reading because you feel they are reading the wrong thing. Fiction you do not like is the gateway drug to other books you may prefer them to read. And not everyone has the same taste as you.” He offers musing on art and films, including many previously published pieces. And this is the only issue I have to raise about this book: nothing is new. Gaiman has brought together essays, introductions written for other books, articles and other previously published pieces all in one collection. Some of it will be familiar for his readers, and some bits they will have missed. I’ve read a few of the bits and pieces over the years, but there was enough in here that I hadn’t read to make the collection feel worth the purchase. The View Behind the Cheap Seats is also very personal; it reveals much about Gaiman as a man and as an artist. If you read enough of the bits in here, you will see some of his creative process and hear the advice he has to share for other writers. You will also see whom he owes debts to, to which writers inspired him and influenced him artistically. Most touching of all was his comments on his friendship with the late great Sir Terry Pratchett; it was worth reading the book for these bits alone. Whilst I wouldn’t recommend this to new readers, I do really think that lovers of his fiction will also love this. I certainly had fun reading it.

Bradley

February 10, 2017

These are basically a collection of previously published essays and ideas ranging to his love of art, people, and the more basic of life's requirements like books and love, but more than that, it's basically an affirmation and a solid grounding in what should be quite evident from anyone who has read his work:Life is and should be about the joy we take in it.Oh, and we get a lot of great book reviews from Gaiman, himself, a lot of which I've got skewered on my To-Read list. I mean, who does that, read reviews about books, anyway? Seriously.His enthusiasm, above all, is infectious, and that's kinda rather the point. Oh, and he's still, after all these years, a dedicated and thorough blind man to the effect he has on us, which is rather a useful tool since so many of us tend to look up to him. I'm sure a lot of us might have knocked him down a few rungs, but no, he's modest. Did I mention charming? Yeah. That too. :)This is pretty much a must read for anyone who likes to read about why their favorite authors like to write, too. So lap it up, you dogs. :) Enjoy.

Amy

July 04, 2016

I have contradictory opinions on fiction vs non-fiction. On one hand, I believe all good fiction is a direct form of communication between the author and the reader -- authors speak, readers respond and ask questions, and sometimes the author answers the question, but sometimes the author turns around and asks the reader a question -- all within the space of a novel. But I also believe that good fiction can exist completely without the readers - like the proverbial tree that falls in an unoccupied forest. I know there's millions of good stories in the world that are wholly not dependent on my existance at all. I will never read most of them, yet they are still good stories. And with many good stories, even as I'm reading them, I know that they would remain an excellent story if I never came along and read it.With non-fiction, though, I believe it truly IS a conversation dependent on the reader. With most good fiction, I usually feel as if I've stumbled into a room where an author was telling a story, and I could leave, shut the door, and the story would still exist. Non-fiction always leaves me with the feeling that the author just proclaimed, "HEY. Amy. I'm talking to you. Come here. I have things to say." And if I shut the book, they remain unsaid.I'm not sure myself what I'm trying to say in this review. I think it's that even if you don't consider yourself a reader of non-fiction, you should read this book, because there are things that need to be said and things that you ought to hear.

Beverly

December 14, 2018

Some of the pieces made me cry. Some made me wonder. Some inspired me. Having them read by Neil Gaiman rocked my world.

J

August 14, 2017

It's truly lovely when one of your revered authors is also a wonderful human being. For me, Neil Gaiman's one of those writers. As a fan, I was delighted to see Neil's selected essays, speeches, articles, and introductions (for other well-respected writers, artists, and musicians) in one book. I found some of the contents familiar because they were all over the net when they were published, but I also missed a fair amount, so this book still had fun and new tidbits for me. Some of my newly discovered favorites were Neil's thoughts on Tori Amos, his Oscar Awards experience, and his and Amanda Palmer's friendship with Anthony. Of course it was also fun to reread his more famous works, like the ones about making mistakes and making good art (that only you can). As expected, the parts involving Terry Pratchett made me laugh and broke my heart all over again. What I really love about Neil's writing - fiction or non-fiction - is that the magic never fades. Even when it came to the books that I wasn't crazy about the first time, there was always something that compelled me to reread because I felt like I only caught a glimpse of the magic the first time and it's not enough. As for the books that I love, the magic changes shape every time I reread, and that's the kind of magic that inspires me as a reader. Like a kid who's seen a complex magic trick for the first time, I want to see even more.

Matt

June 02, 2018

If you identify as any sort of geek, then you've probably dabbled in some of Neil Gaiman's evocative, fantastical fiction. If you're anything like me, you've found yourself caught in a YouTube vortex of Neil Gaiman interviews, speeches, and discussions. Gaiman's a fantastic speaker: he's charismatic, he's kind, he's notoriously modest, and he speaks and writes with palpable enthusiasm. If you've ever sat back and heard/watched Gaiman speak and thought, This guy's really got a handle on it all, hasn't he?, then The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction is exactly the book for you.More specifically, it is the audiobook for you, as after listening to Gaiman for 16+ hours, it's hard to imagine reading this book. Gaiman's voice was a soothing balm on the internet-scorched skin of my mind. Where much of the news is doom, gloom, and humans doing terrible things to one another, Gaiman reminds the reader of wonder, enthusiasm, and the importance of stories. Gaiman spurs into motion the act of hunting a *ahem* good read and is able to capture the feeling of being wrapped up in a novel.For the most part, that's what this audiobook is about: why it's important to read and discuss good stories. Why stories are more than diversions from our day-to-day, and how all different genres satisfy those needs in different ways. This is an assortment of essays, speeches, commentaries, reviews, obituaries, and articles for magazines that have few commonalities other than an author and being about stories. Though I can't say I enjoyed everything (I don't know if I've heard a Tori Amos song, but I certainly wasn't familiar enough to love that piece), there was nothing that I hated.If there's a complaint to lodge against the book its that it repeats itself. You'll find Gaiman recycle personal stories between speeches, and this can make for a bit of frustration as you wait out something you've already heard before. It's rather like the experience of listening to a familial story that your uncle just can't seem to give up: you may have heard it before, and it's a bit tedious, but it's a bit comforting too. An unexpected boon from this book was a slew of new additions to the TBR pile. If you take a look back on the last 10 or 20 books I've added, they were likely recommended in some way by this book. Gaiman discusses novels that have influenced him, important novels of various genres, and obscure texts from which many of our stories are drawn. As I seem to be on quite the sci-fi kick right now, this was a welcome introduction to many classics of the genre that I would have missed or overlooked otherwise. There are few enough books that beget more books, but this is one of them.I'm not sure that everyone would enjoy this entire audiobook, but I guarantee that there's something for everybody in this collection. Though I listened to the entire thing, you could do a bit of skipping around to the parts you think you'd like. There's bits about the importance of libraries, dead authors, living authors, books Gaiman wrote, TV shows Gaiman liked as a child, a long-form on Stephen King (that makes me want to give up whatever sort of pretense was keeping me from reading King), the Syrian refugee crisis, making movies, attending conventions, dreaming, loving, listening, reading, writing, and, of course, some book reviews. Definitely worth checking out!

Trish

July 09, 2016

In the launching event for this book Neil Gaiman said that there have been many more writings of his that could have been included (and that he admires the woman who chose which piece would make it into this book and which should be left out since it was a lot of work), but if this book was any thicker it would have to get registered as a weapon. I think he was wrong. This IS a weapon. A weapon is something dangerous, something you can kill people with and this book certainly fits that description. It's not so much the size, though, or the number of pages or weight; it's the content.This book collects speeches and musings and tidbits from the famous author about all manner of things. We get some of his introductions to other books, some speeches he gave because of tragic world events such as the Charlie Hebdo massacre, commencement speeches at universities, and much more.I had no idea Neil Gaiman knew so many famous people who were so important for all areas of art. Equally, I had no idea how many introductions he had written or how many interviews he had conducted. The fact, however, that he had worked with so many different people from so many different areas on art, and the fact that he himself has basically done everything (novels, short stories, audiobooks, comics, movies, ...) means that he gives the reader a unique insight into these worlds.The book also shows how compassionate and still down-to-earth Neil Gaiman is, how human. He is a hopeless optimist and although I can unfortunately not always relate, it is kind of intoxicating, if only for a little while. My favourite part here in this book, much to my astonishment, was not about his good friends Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams (who mean a lot to this little reader), but about Anthony. Anthony was Amanda Palmer's (Neil's wife's) best friend and father-figure. I knew of his illness through updates on Twitter and Facebook and although they were very dark, I loved Neil Gaiman's musings on Death. More than once I shed a tear while reading this book. So here are three of my favourite parts: [...]fiction was an escape from the untolerable, a doorway into impossibly hospitable worlds where things had rules and could be understood; stories had been a way of learning about life without experiencing it, or perhaps of experiencing it as an eighteenth-century poisoner dealt with poisons, taking them in tiny doses, such that the poisoner could cope with ingesting things that would kill someone who was not inured to them. Sometimes fiction is a way of coping with the poison of the world in a way that lets us survive it. [...]Do not give either of us [Anthony and Neil Gaiman] gifts: give us the tale that accompanies the gift. That is what makes the gift worth having. [...]as I said, it is the tales that accompany the gift that matter: the stories that show us the joy of event, of the shaping of memories, and the joy of a life lived, as all lives are lived, both in the light and the darkness. And here is Neil Gaiman's credo in honour of the Charlie Hebdo event: as well as a link to the video where he reads the entire thing (the picture shows the short version) also in light of the shooting in Denmark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8k0d...For any fan of this author this is un-missable. However, it is also great for anyone who has not read any NG book yet because, in my humble opinion, he is a very nice human being - not without faults, but real and interesting and intelligent. I would very much love to meet him in person and have a long conversation with him, but since that is probably very unrealistic, this book got me as close to that experience as possible.P.S.: I have the printed version and the audiobook, which Neil Gaiman narrated himself - I recommend the audiobook wholeheartedly since Neil Gaiman's voice and especially his personifications are marvellous!

Jessica

March 06, 2017

So glad I listened to the audio! (Special thanks for Amy Finnegan, who recommended it as an audiobook!) Having Neil Gaiman essentially deliver the speeches again, or do voices like Lou Reed and Stephen King as he recreates his interviews with them, was totally engaging. Loved what he had to say about writing. Loved his passion for books and music and film. Loved getting to hear him give his Newbery acceptance and Make Good Art speeches. Some of the articles dragged on a bit, I will admit. And while I am now resolved to read The King of Elfland's Daughter and several other books that he recommended, I still am not interested in Dr Who, but that's fine. I think this is a must for booklovers and for writers as well as Gaiman fans. It gives you a very interesting inside look at how Gaiman's mind works, or why authors like Lovecraft or Poe continue to draw readers, and I found the oddest bits inspiring, like descriptions of a portrait of the Bronte sisters.The one thing I will never understand is Amanda Palmer. I'm sorry, but there it is. I do not see how someone who can write so lushly and passionately about the subtleties of the Pre-Raphaelites or Edgar Allan Poe can also write in the same glowing terms about someone whose songs consist mostly of her screaming the f-word and banging on a piano with her feet. I mean, I just. Don't. Get. It. So be warned that there are several articles he wrote about her . . . ahem, music . . . and liner notes for her albums in here. Just FYI.

Jared

March 29, 2017

Well, that was a blast. One of the blurbs on the back describes this book as having Neil Gaiman all to yourself for a long one-on-one conversation. It's not quite that. It's more like attending a Neil Gaiman Convention with panels and tracks on every field in which Gaiman has dabbled and where every speaker is Gaiman himself (with special guest Lou Reed). For someone who's definitely become the Rock Star of fantasy literature, NG comes across as humble, gracious, and charmingly self-deprecating. Also, like Jo Walton's What Makes This Book So Great , this book will do bad things to your Goodreads list.As a librarian, I found this book particularly timely and inspirational. It was published (and I got my copy) during the first week of Summer Reading 2016, when our libraries are overrun by hordes of screaming brats wonderful children. Gaiman opens with a piece on the value and importance of libraries: a better pep talk I've never had.

Kati

April 03, 2016

Neil Gaiman can do no wrong

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