In early February of 2007, Gaiman posted an entry in his blog about the break-in of his favorite local bookstore. The owners of the store are friends with Gaiman and asked if he would please tell his blog readers about this and maybe encourage his readers to help out by maybe buying a book. The store, Dreamhaven, has a really nice online catalog, and I used it extensively when collecting my copies of the Sandman.

February is my birthday month, and I hadn't purchased a present for myself yet, so the timing was perfect. I wanted to buy a book by Gaiman, to support Gaiman as well as Dreamhaven, and I when I saw that Angels & Visitations was also published by Dreamhaven, I chose that one.

Dreamhaven provides the option of getting a book signed for you by certain local authors, although it delays the shipping until the author happens to come in and be available to sign. So about a month later, I got my package of this in the mail complete with a "Happy birthday" inscription.

I love presents. Receiving and giving.

The book: Gaiman's first story collection. Many of the better stories were published in other collections, also, and I'm not a fan of some of the book's design (namely the cover lettering and table of contents shadow). But the better stories are still here, and I'm very glad I bought it.

Link to Gaiman's blog entry:
http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/200... ( )

A very early Neil Gaiman collection, that I think is kind of hard to get now. Most of the short stories have since been reprinted, many of them in "Smoke and Mirrors," but what makes this volume cool is that it also contains a few examples of Gaiman's journalism, including a book review he wrote after he lost the book. He mostly ends up talking about peeing in styrofoam cups and elephant come, I believe. A treasure.

Wow....

A "miscellany," according to the cover, which is quite an accurate description. Pretty much everything first appeared somewhere else, and there is a noticable overlap with Gaiman's short story collection, _Smoke and Mirrors_, but there are things in this collection that are otherwise extremely hard to find (my favoirite being the prologu for Mary Gentle's _Scholors and Soldeiers_), and some delighful illustrations.