Neil Gaiman and James Thurber

Neil Gaiman is hosting The Wall Street Journal's (WSJ) book club this month, and has chosen "The 13 Clocks" by James Thurber for discussion. I fell in love with this book about a year an a half ago when I picked up a copy after hearing Thurber, whom I came to know through his New Yorker essays, had written quite a few children's books. Turns out, the fact that I could even get a copy is credited to Gaiman. Thurber wrote "The 13 Clocks" in 1950 and it had been out of print, and mostly forgotten, until Gaiman blogged about his love for the 'skewed' fairy tale. The New York Review Children's Collection reached out to Gaiman and in 2008 the book was reprinted, complete with an introduction by Gaiman. In an interview with WSJ Gaiman states:   

"It was one of those books which I grew up believing to be a children's classic, in the sense that I couldn't imagine getting through childhood without having read it, like "Alice in Wonderland," I suppose, or these days, "Harry Potter." You assume every kid has probably read it. Coming to America, I figured, now I'm in the home of James Thurber. But I would mention it to people and I would get blank looks. I slowly realized that this thing that I thought was required reading in order to be a human being was a book that actually only a tiny minority had read, and in fact had been out of print when I came to America. So that was the point where I started my little campaign to bring it back into print." (Interview: The Wall Street Journal)

Every time I re-read "The 13 Clocks" I find something new to love about it. It's just that kind of book.. 

"A fair wind stood for Yarrow and, looking far to the sea, the Princess Saralinda thought she saw, as people often think they see, on clear and windless days, the distant shinning shores of Ever After. Your guess is quite as good as mine (there are a lot of things that shine) but I have always thought she did, and I will always think so" (Thurber 120-1). 

WSJ Book Club

Neil Gaiman's blog