#fragile things

[vpgoldenrod]

I’d like to share a short story I stumbled onto while reading Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman.

[rubydart]

H u s h, the Nowhere King sleeps made for the @fragile-things-zine Centaurworld Zine (ID: An aerial view of the skeletal remains of an eldritch elk with too many legs and rib cages lying on red/black/blue ink- or blood-like sludge, curled up in a circle. At opposite is the General, likewise lying on the ground. Morning light gives the bones an orange glow. Maybe they're dead or maybe they're just sleeping.)

[slowedmountains]

the most comfortable cowboy this side of the portal

One of my pieces for @fragile-things-zine! If you missed preorders, don't worry! You can still pick up a digital pack, and leftover sales will be opening on 1st September, keep an eye on the store for that.

[mid-fall-crowley]

Bell, Book, Candle

So I was reading My Life by Neil Gaiman, which is collected in the book Fragile Things, and I saw this line: “For all he had a candle, bell, and book.”

All I could think of was the scene in Good Omens where Shadwell confronts Aziraphale in the bookshop and says “bell, book, practically a candle”

I’m really hoping this was a reference

[christilia]

Here's my pieces for the zine @fragile-things-zine I was did last year in 2022^^ It was my first ever zine experience and it was such a fun little project to work on. Enjoy!!

[a-ramblinrose]

JOMP Book Photo Challenge || November 21 || Pumpkins:

[littlcwpcakes]

૮꒰ྀི … little fragile doll girl drowning dead in the water… ꒱ྀིა

╭ . ˚ ⑅ ❄︎ ꒰ ⸝⸝ ꒱ dani, she/it (:̲̅:̲̅:̲̅[̲̅:♡:]̲̅:̲̅:̲̅:̲̅) my main blog ₊˚❄︎

┊ a frightened and sorrowful soul hiding behind a wounded skin, with a heart which shatters easily… ♡

┊in love with cillian murphy ( ｡>﹏<)

╰┈ ｡˚⑅ ౨ৎ ꒰ possible trigger warnings: self harm, suicidal ideations, blood, syringes, knives, bruises, cut marks… ♡⑅˚ഒ ꒱

[ijustkindalikebooks]

“Stories, like people and butterflies and songbirds' eggs and human hearts and dreams, are also fragile things, made up of nothing stronger or more lasting than twenty-six letters and a handful of punctuation marks. Or they are words on the air, composed of sounds and ideas-abstract, invisible, gone once they've been spoken-and what could be more frail than that? But some stories, small, simple ones about setting out on adventures or people doing wonders, tales of miracles and monsters, have outlasted all the people who told them, and some of them have outlasted the lands in which they were created.” ― Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders.

[writerkatsblog]

Latest chapter of Fragile Things is now up! Apologies for it being so late, and thank you for your patience!

[wheneverfeasible]

I used this link to see what my writing style was like and I—

I am humbled by this honor. It’s not the first time someone has told me my writing style was reminiscent of Mr. Gaiman’s and it remains to this day the highest and greatest compliment I have ever received.

I doubt @neil-gaiman will see this, but I really had to share.

[thelastofthebookworms]

For uniformity's sake :

Each work count as 1,

e.g. Sandman counts as one because different editions mean a different number of volumes and Danny who's read the 3 Omnibus Volumes has read just as much as Nawel who's read 14 volumes.

Yes it means that someone who's read one issue will vote for the same thing that someone who's read the whole thing. No system is perfect.

If you've read one work (let's say The Graveyard Book) and its adaptation (let's say P. Craig Russell's), it counts as two, though (and not 3 even if the graphic novel is divided in two parts)

Of course audiobooks count.

[altijd-november]

I know realistically that i shouldn't text a number written on a sticky note in a book but

It's a Neil Gaiman book (Fragile Things)

It's a library book

Do evil people who like Neil Gaiman and go to the library exist????

[boog-how]

Fragile Things

[spearmintyy]

Review on frank: sonnets by Diane Seuss

I'll be the first to admit I don't typically seek out poetry books, but this one came highly recommended to me by a professor, so I gave it a shot!

Ranking: ★★

For me, this collection started out really strong. The in-the-moment sequence of poems of her approaching the lighthouse were clever and resonant, with a good balance of humor and self-reflection.

However, she really lost me in the rehashing of her life story. It felt like she was trying to paint herself as a prototypical tortured artist, constantly trying to prove to the reader that she was born with some inherent poetic drive. It just didn't feel honest to me.

My favorite poem in this collection was "I Wanted to be Like the Boy in the Book." To me, this poem was immensely interesting and resonant. Rather than a rehashed cliche, I felt like Diane Seuss was tackling an incredibly personal, genuine struggle that I think many can relate to, though it is not often discussed.

It's possible I'm too harsh, or just don't understand this type of poetry. But in a book of 127 poems, she only spoke highly of another woman once. This felt like a life story told through the men in her life; often it felt like she was using their treatment of her as evidence of her worth. Furthermore, and this is a personal gripe, but I find the sentiment of "I haven't experienced love, so it must not be real and everyone else is deluding themselves/dumber than me" very juvenile and was actually surprised to see it so frequently in a book written by someone later in life.

Recommendations:

Now, it feels a bit strange giving recommendations based on a book I didn't like, so instead I'll give some recommendations of poetry and short fiction that I did like.

Smoke and Mirrors and Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman. These are two collections of short stories and poems written by Neil Gaiman. Gaiman has a (to me, at least) unique style of poetry with a more narrative approach, which makes it very accessible and engaging. Also, these collections contain some seriously amazing short stories, including my favorite of all time, The Goldfish Pond and other Stories. Genres vary from lovecraftian horror, to modern fantasy, to fairy tales.

The Book of Delights: Essays by Ross Gay. Similar to frank: sonnets, in that this is another collection of short, non-fiction works, Ross Gay takes an entirely different view on life. These short essays were written in a year, one a day (though not every essay was included in the published collection), and each reflects on something he experienced that day which brought him joy. Gay sees the artistic value in the expression and exploration of joy. However, he's not afraid to tackle challenging concepts like racism and the pressure of masculinity, which he does in a way that is somehow touching, educational, and entertaining.

[cerysdelaney]

Bookstore Purchase with No Regrets: Three Gaiman Short Story Collections

@neil-gaiman is one of those authors that I found through an anthology, “The Faery Reel: Tales from the Twilight Realm,” in which he had written a poem of the same name that enchanted me, perhaps forever. I am grateful to this day that this anthology left a list of his works like a treasure map.

“They’d slice [my heart] into four and then

they’d string with it a violin.

And every day and every night

they’d play upon my heart a song

So plaintive and so wild and strange

that all who heard it danced along” (Faery Reel)

Fast forward 17 years later to last week when I’m perusing a bookstore’s shelves and find three of his short story collections. I purchase one, read the introduction in the cafe, and then give into temptation and purchase the other two. How could I not? Just read him:

“A few of [these stories] were written to amuse myself, or, more precisely, to get an idea or an image out of my head and pinned safely down on paper; which is as good a reason for writing as I know: releasing demons, letting them fly.” (Smoke and Mirrors - this now sits at my bedside for a nightly tale before bed)

“There are things in this book, as in life, that might upset you. There is death and pain in here, tears and discomfort, violence of all kinds, cruelty, even abuse. There is kindness, too, I hope, sometimes. Even a handful of happy endings. (Few stories end unhappily for all participants, after all). And there’s more than that: I know a lady called Rocky who is triggered by tentacles, and who genuinely needs warnings for things that have tentacles in them, especially tentacles with suckers, and who, confronted with an unexpected slice of squid or octopus, will dive, shaking, behind the nearest sofa. There is an enormous tentacle somewhere in these pages.” (Trigger Warning - this rests in my purse for random times when I’m asked to wait)

“It occurs to me that the peculiarity of most things we think of as fragile is how tough they truly are…Hearts may break, but hearts are the toughest of muscles, able to pump for a lifetime, seventy times a minute, and scarcely falter along the way. Even dreams, the most delicate and intangible of things, can prove remarkably difficult to kill.” (Fragile Things - hides in the living room by the couch, just out of reach of my toddler and waits for moments of quiet to tell me a story, or at least, part of one, before the next adventure).

Thank you, Mr. Gaiman, siren, pied piper, sandman, and dreamer - perhaps captive - setting part of your soul loose to tell stories so plaintive and so wild and strange.

It’s nice to have traveling companions, for a while or for a lifetime.