I like that we get to see the inspiration for each of the short stories, we really get to see a bit of insight into the writing process and how it becomes an end product. ( )

This collection of short pieces from Gaiman's work in the late 90s showcases his often dark imagination. Not every selection here is to my taste, but when he's cookin', no one can touch him.

This edition includes copious notes regarding each story, helping to place them in time and occasionally to explain where they came from. Standouts in the collection include 'Chivalry', a clever fantasy with a light touch, and a quietly frightening piece called 'The Sweeper of Dreams', whose lyrical opening paragraph is just about as perfect a lead-in as I've ever seen:

After all the dreaming is over, after you wake, and leave the world of madness and glory for the mundane day-lit daily grind, through the wreckage of your abandoned fancies walks the sweeper of dreams.

( )

Coming in the mail today. ( )

A collection of short stories (which I expected) and some poems (which I did not). Gaiman's poems are lovely and creepy, like his fiction. Some pieces were interesting (like the one about an author trying to negotiate with Hollywood people wanting to make his book into a movie and the H.P. Lovecraft-inspired pieces about the coming of Cthulhu and a werewolf) and some were too disturbing or confusing for me. I'd give it an average of 3.5 out of 5 stars. ( )

- Reading the Entrails -3/5
• The Wedding Present - 3/5
• Chivalry - 3/5
• Nicholas Was... - 5/5
• The Price - 3/5
• Troll Bridge - 3/5
• Don't Ask Jack - 4/5
• The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories - 3/5
• Eaten (Scenes from a Moving picture) - 2/5
• The White Road - 5/5
• Queen of Knives (for Eric Stern's opera of the same name see Queen of Knives) - 2/5
• The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch - 2/5
• Changes - 3/5
• The Daughter of Owls - 5/5
• Shoggoth's Old Peculiar - 2/5
• Virus - 3/5
• Looking for the Girl - 3/5
• Only the End of the World Again - 5/5
• Bay Wolf - 3/5
• Fifteen Painted Cards from a Vampire Tarot - 5/5
• We Can Get Them For You Wholesale - 2/5
• One Life, Furnished in Early Moorcock - 2/5
• Cold Colors - 2/5
• The Sweeper of Dreams - 3/5
• Foreign Parts - 2/5
• Vampire Sestina - 4/5
• Mouse - 2/5
• How Do You Think It Feels? - 3/5
• When We Went to See the End of the World by Dawnie Morningside, age 11¼ - 2/5
• Desert Wind - 3/5
• Tastings - 2/5
• In the End - 2/5
• Babycakes - 2/5
• Murder Mysteries - 3/5
- Snow, Glass, Apples - 5/5 ( )