"I was sitting on the train, tears dripping down my face and onto the page, as I finished this book. The story ended just as we pulled into my stop. After reading such a story, it felt almost sacrilegious to simply go about the rest of my day. There were two boys, about twelve years old, sitting across from me. Before I got off the train, I handed my copy to one of them, said 'Here, have a book,' and got off the train with my face still wet. It was too good to come back and quietly live on my shelf.
Neil Gaiman is not a nostalgic writer; he's too inventive for that. But when reading his work, one feels a sense of childlike wonder and excitement while at the same time maintaining a high level of adult understanding. The Ocean at the End of the Lane exhibits this precisely. As the reader, Gaiman acknowledges that you understand the world of taxes, of sex, of highway driving. Yet he invites you to feel thrilled about a fresh glass of milk, or to be afraid of the babysitter, in the same way a child might. Extraordinarily unlike any other writer, Gaiman offers you the chance to be both: a child and an adult."
Publisher William Morrow
Publication Date 2019-11-05
Section Gift / Seasonal Books / All Staff Suggestions / Fiction Suggestions / Audrey S.
Format Hardcover
ISBN 9780062995315
“A novel about the truths―some wonderful, some terrible―that children know and adults do not.” ―Time
A beautiful, immersive, fully illustrated edition of Neil Gaiman’s beloved #1 bestselling novel, featuring illustrations by Elise Hurst.
“They say you cannot go home again, and that is as true as a knife . . .”
A man returns to the site of his childhood home where, years before, he knew a girl named Lettie Hempstock who showed him the most marvelous, dangerous, and outrageous things, but when he gets there he learns that nothing is as he remembered.
Wondrous, imaginative, impossible, and at times deeply scary, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is classic Neil Gaiman and has captured the hearts of readers everywhere. This beautiful illustrated edition features haunting, emotive artwork by renowned fine artist Elise Hurst, whose illustrations seamlessly interweave the childhood wonder and harrowing danger that infuse Gaiman’s beloved tale.
