I just found out about Neil Gaiman

I just found out about Neil Gaiman and now I have to get rid of all of his books. Because, gross. 🤮

Am I just burning them?

I put them in the giveaway box, but I sure felt like burning them. I think I still have a couple of books left where he wasn't the only author, but sure won't be getting any more :(

>1 queenoflightandjoy: I understand how you feel. For me it was just one e-book, so a simple delete did it.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/17/neil-gaiman-allegations-se...

https://www.npr.org/2025/01/14/nx-s1-5259516/neil-gaiman-response-sexual-miscond...

Neil Gaiman

And added an 'About'.

The only one in my catalogue was a library book. Like >3 Nicole_VanK:, easy to delete.

I would get any books you discard into the various second hand dealers because people will continue to buy his books, but if they buy it second hand he doesn't get any money from the transaction.

>2 tardis: I am foundationally conflicted about his books being out in the world for someone of a younger persuasion to find and love, who may not be able to access information about his terrible acts, and the act of burning or disposing of books in general.

>3 Nicole_VanK: The ease of an e-book delete. If only. We have at least a box full over here.
Which one did you have?

>5 queenoflightandjoy: Yeah, I understand that feeling. I don't normally have trouble throwing books in the garbage. Heck, I was a librarian and the last quarter of my career was mostly chucking books in recycle bins. I didn't love doing it, but there were reasons. Bad reasons, and imposed from above, but reasons. I coped by remembering that there were other copies available once ours were gone.

I'm also somewhat in agreement with >4 MarthaJeanne: though. Second-hand sales don't support his income, and sometimes a book can help even if the author is not a good person.

He was an author I mainly borrowed from the library. Only a few of the books did I love enough to acquire them.

Another example for Monsters A Fan's Dilemma.

>8 lesmel: Thank you for this suggestion. It is extremely helpful. I’m putting this to the front of my reading list.

Another Guardian opinion piece:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/19/neil-gaiman-sexual-miscond...

>4 MarthaJeanne: Thanks for the helpful author link. Four from the library and one purchased but not yet read so easy to note to discard.

>11 amarie: It's always useful to have the touchstone so people can see who or what is being discussed.

>6 queenoflightandjoy: Only Coraline

There was a glut of his books in the used book store I went into today, seems like it's a common response!

I had just picked up Stardust new for my kids school book club, shame.

I was broken hearted to hear about Bill Cosby, but still have all his albums I so loved as a child. My heart breaks over Gaiman and I understand the need to put his work far away from you. But the art still exists, it had and still has meaning to me. I know im in the minority here, and am not critical of other peoples responses. Just cant let it go

question about Good Omens; strange to me that we never heard anything about this until hes already to produce the final of the series we all have been waiting for. Timing is odd here for me, esp as he has not been charged. I think I need to hear more about this. but for right now Im keeping his books

>15 cindydavid4: That's understandable. I never "burned" J.K. Rowling's books either, even though she went fulltime bigot. What's the use? I already paid for them. (They got stolen though, but that's another story).

Never another penny from me though.

>16 Nicole_VanK: I kept the basic Potter books, even though my brother's kid is trans, but I got rid of all the ancillary books, and I will never buy or read her stuff again. There are just so many good memories of reading the original books with my kids and listening to the audiobooks on road trips. If anything happened to them, I wouldn't replace them, though.

>1 queenoflightandjoy: Personally, I'm adding a bookplate in every book he wrote – with a warning about what he did and who he really was. MAKE HIS SHAME LIVE AS LONG AS HIS NAME.

On principle, I don't burn books because they are the work of many people – good, talented, hardworking artists, editors, printers, binders and more. Some people still want to read his stories (not me, but I understand their curiosity). So—I'm putting a warning in every book with his name in it.

Each bookplate will state the undisputed facts: He grossly abused his power. By his own admission, he sexually abused many vulnerable fans and employees (including a reluctant 22 year-old woman employed as a nanny for his and Amanda Palmer's child, just hours after meeting her, when he was in his sixties). He, a multi-millionaire, exploited people for free labour. He silenced many of the women whom he abused with NDAs to prevent them from telling the truth about him.

If you have your own story of your experiences with him that should come with a warning (and you haven't been gagged by an NDA) write that down in his books so that the true stories of him last as long as his books do.

Do this before you give the books away so that people who might read them later will be warned that he was a monster – a wolf in sheep's clothing.

MAKE HIS SHAME LIVE AS LONG AS HIS NAME!

I was never a huge fan. His longer stuff never did it for me, but several of his stories are in my top few—"A Study in Emerald" and "Other People," especially.

I don't throw stuff out. It doesn't make sense to me. I prefer traditional sanctions. To that end I wouldn't be in his company again. (We once met at ALA to discuss cataloging his library; the project was screwed up by his assistant, for which he apologized years later.) He'll still publish books, and I doubt he's going to be impoverished by lawsuits. But, with luck, his circle of friends contracts to sycophants. He certainly hurt people. He deserves isolation. Isolation with money is not, I think, very satisfying.

While I won't throw his stuff out I'm not liable to try to get into his longer stuff, or read more of his stories, as was my plan some day. My reason is more to do with me than him. While broken people often have the deepest insights into the human condition (the cracks are where the light gets in, etc.), my read on him is that he remains far more bent--and unapologetically so--than broken. Self-deception is not a good platform for literary truth.

"Other People" remains a touchstone. I would like to hope that his fate is rather like of the protagonist of that—to have all his excuses stripped away.

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Never been a fan of Gaiman for some reason. I had to put down The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley after I found out about her and her husband. It's a real shame because Avalon is very well written...but knowing that she knew what her husband was doing while she was writing it and did nothing about it...is no different than condoning it. Who knows what really went on. Disturbing to say the least.