Neil Gaiman, on the road in America

Author Neil Gaiman is heading to the U.S. to promote his latest, "The Graveyard Book," and the tour will be a little unusual. Kicking off in New York on Sept. 30, Gaiman will read a chapter at each stop, beginning with the first, moving on to the second, etc. By the time he's done -- in Minneapolis, on Oct. 8 -- he'll have finished the book.

This kind of every-show-is-different might encourage a Grateful Dead-like following, readers packing up their VW buses to follow Gaiman -- and his story -- from one venue to the next. Except that his reading schedule is awfully tight -- driving from Chicago to Seattle in one day would be nearly impossible. So why not just read the same chapter in every city, like most authors do?

On his blog, Gaiman writes:

The stops are going to be filmed. Each chapter that gets read will also be put online by Harpers very soon after it's read (depends mainly on how quickly the footage can be edited and put up online). So you can follow the tour around, and get the book a chapter at a time for free...

Readers can get the whole picture sitting at home. Although by the time he gets into those middle chapters, it might to help to read along. "The Graveyard Book" is a children's book that includes, Gaiman told Powell's, "the single scariest scene I have ever written in twenty-two years or whatever it is now of writing."

Longtime Gaiman fans may want to show up in person. (Locally, that would be October 7, at Lincoln Middle School in Santa Monica, hosted by Barnes & Noble). The plan is to show exclusive footage from "Coraline," the movie coming out next year that's based on his earlier children's book. Our brother blog, Hero Complex, got a peek behind the scenes; it looks pretty spectacular.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo:  Kimberly Butler