Gaiman's first novel for adults in eight years, "The Ocean at the End of the Lane," would seem to follow this pattern; most of the action, recounted in the first person, describes the experiences of a nameless 7-year-old boy. But "The Ocean at the End of the Lane" does feel different, and not only because of its framing device. The novel begins and ends with the narrator, now an adult, returning to the English village where he grew up, for a family funeral. (The deceased is never identified, but there are hints it is the man's father.) We learn that he's been married and separated, that he is a working artist, that he has grown children. When he looks back on the strange events of his childhood, it is through the mellowed and slightly melancholy lens of middle-age. What the story sacrifices of the sweet, glassy purity of a child's view, it compensates for with the complex sepia of maturity; it's the difference between a bright young white wine and a well-aged burgundy.

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Dirk Maggs adapted Gaiman's novel for Radio 4; the six-part series stars notable fantasy movie actors, including James McAvoy ("X-Men"), Benedict Cumberbatch ("Sherlock," "Star Trek Into Darkness") and Christopher Lee ("Lord of the Rings") who tell the story of Richard Mayhew and his "Alice in Wonderland"-like descent into the dark and mysterious underworld of London, called London Below.

According to the BBC, all episodes will be available "to catch up on demand until 29 March 2013."

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The story, "Down to a Sunless Sea," is part of the Guardian's "Water stories" series:

"The Guardian's short fiction project Water stories asks writers from around the world to distil the essence of modern life, charting the ebb and flow of our cultural existence to explore the element from which we are born and which has inspired writers since Gilgamesh crossed the Waters of Death"

The series launched on March 15 and includes a graphic story by Isabel Greenberg, a story by Argentine novelist Martín Kohan and others.

Gaiman's story is set on the banks of the Thames River in London, where "the bodies of cats and dogs and the bones of sheep and pigs down into the brown water," he writes.  But read it at your own risk -- "it's a bit creepy," tweeted Gaiman.

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Suggestions so far include:

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Watch the promo video below:

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The Faulkner acquisition is only the latest prize in a literary shopping spree for HBO and other television companies. The premium cable network is currently at work on adaptations of Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections," Jennifer Egan's "A Visit From the Goon Squad, and Neil Gaiman's "American Gods," in addition to its ongoing series based on the novels of George R.R. Martin ("Game of Thrones") and Charlaine Harris ("True Blood"). Fox will be turning Lev Grossman's "The Magicians" into an hour-long dramatic series, as well, and Salman Rushdie is at work on an original show, "Next People," for Showtime. The novel and television are commingling as never before. And it's about time.

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Recently, Gaiman kicked his advocacy up a notch by agreeing to hand-select and produce a line of audiobooks in partnership with the audio download retailer Audible.com. Neil Gaiman Presents released its first five titles last month; they include the novel "Land of Laughs" by Jonathan Carroll and "You Must Go and Win" by musician-turned-essayist Aline Simone. Future releases will include books by the early 20th-century American author James Branch Cabell (the target of a once-notorious censorship suit for writing an "offensive, lewd, lascivious and indecent book") and "Dimension of Miracles" by Robert Sheckley, a work Gaiman likens to "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," and which will be narrated by television personality John Hodgman.

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Which is all very exciting. I love "American Gods" and "The Sandman" series, and have always wondered why the latter seems to be the one graphic novel that never gets a film adaptation like Frank Miller's or Alan Moore's do. Maybe it's because Gaiman's stories are sprawling epics, a much better fit for television than the big screen, where character traits and subplots would have to be boiled down to their coarsest elements in order to keep the pace of the story going.

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The newly elected Republicans who recently took control of both of Minnesota's legislative houses, though, are residents of Tea Party America, and in Tea Party America the government has no business spending money on anything besides arming militias, to shoot abortion providers. Take it away, House Majority Leader Matt Dean:

Dean also singled out a $45,000 payment of Legacy money that was made last year to science fiction writer Neil Gaiman for a four-hour speaking appearance. Dean said that Gaiman, "who I hate," was a "pencil-necked little weasel who stole $45,000 from the state of Minnesota."

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The several dozen people who contributed to the story seemed to have fun, and perhaps that's all that really matters. A Web 2.0 version of the old surrealist parlor game known as "exquisite corpse," the twittered story was intended as a publicity stunt for BBC Audiobooks America's line of "distinctive single-voiced and full-cast dramatized audiobooks," and surely succeeded at that. Yet BBCAA intends to publish an audio-only version of the story, read by Gaiman himself, which makes this as apt an occasion as any to raise some questions about the creative potential of social networking. How is a good story invented? Is it yet another of those decision-based endeavors that can, according to the technotopian, freakonomical wisdom of our time, be performed better en masse than by the hopelessly antiquated individual? Can fiction be crowdsourced?

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This anthology of fractured and reconfigured fairy tales for young readers offers an excellent introduction to the unreliability of perspective, one that plenty of adults will find provocative, too. How do the old stories look when retold from the point of view of the wicked witch, the evil wizard, the troll under the bridge?

A dazzling array of contributors -- Neil Gaiman, Holly Black, Jane Yolen, Peter S. Beagle and Kelly Link, among others -- present the other side of the story. Some hew pretty close to tradition; Beagle's clucking giantess says of Jack, "He was a nice boy, really, for all the vexation he caused. They always are. I've never eaten a bad one yet," even if she insists that the beanstalk was planted by her husband. Garth Nix's Rapunzel is actually a lazy teenage freeloader, not so much imprisoned in the hardworking witch's tower as squatting there, gorging on free food and cable TV.

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Henry Selick's stop-motion animated film "Coraline," just out in a double-disc collector's edition on DVD and Blu-ray, is a wonder of visual invention, creating a prickly, whimsical fun-house world and then tearing it down again. It is best considered independent from the Neil Gaiman novella that inspired it, a mini-masterpiece of English Gothic horror with a bone-chilling darkness at its core. Selick tells essentially the same story, about a modern-day Alice who finds a secret passage into an idyllic other world that turns out to be a deadly trap, but renders its plucky heroine and her universe in friendlier, goofier, more American colors. Only the youngest children will find Selick's "Coraline" truly frightening, I would think, although its seductive-cum-sinister "other mother" might puzzle them. (I haven't tried it on my 5-year-olds yet.)

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"Coraline," Neil Gaiman's compact but beautifully textured 2002 children's novel, is a modern-day fairy tale with its share of dark, jagged corners. Its eponymous heroine is a little girl whose parents are often distracted and don't always have time for her. But she discovers an alternative family that, at first, seems to be an improvement -- although this Other Mother and Father do have buttons sewn where their eyes should be, and you can bet that's not a good sign.

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The first crop of fall fiction offers a stunning variety of choices. Whether you're in the mood for an academic comedy hinged on two rival art scholars (Zadie Smith's "On Beauty"), a slightly fantastic, genre-bending collection of short stories (Tim Powers' "Strange Itineraries"), a hypnotic Civil War narrative (E.L. Doctorow's "The March"), or the spare, sad tale of a man's recovery after a dramatic accident (J.M Coetzee's "Slow Man"), there's something for you in this mix. Not to mention pigs (Kelly Fitzgerald's wild and charming "Pigtopia"), the flu (Myla Goldberg's accomplished and daring "Wickett's Remedy"), and trickster gods (Neil Gaiman's wonderful "Anansi Boys").

So, don't despair that summer has come to an end. In fact, look forward to the coming cold, and the excuse to stay inside. We promise, too, that there will be even more inspiring fiction to come in this season -- so get reading! With any of these picks, you're assured a delicious indoor afternoon.

Our first pick: From the author of "White Teeth," an academic comedy, a riff on E.M. Forster and a catalog of human folly

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"Anansi Boys," Gaiman's latest foray into the same fictional milieu, is a more modest and also a more fully realized book. That's because it takes full advantage of the author's great gift: his ability to blend the archetypal elements of myth and folklore with the grit and comedy of everyday life. His characters never stop wrangling with real-world problems -- infuriating relatives, crappy jobs, rickety love lives -- even when they stumble into some very strange and cosmic situations. The poor slob this time around is one Charles Anansi, a sweet but easily mortified nebbish trying to eke out a humble existence as an administrative worker in London. He's been saddled with the (unfitting) nickname of Fat Charlie by his charming rascal of a father, a supporting character in "American Gods" and -- unbeknownst to Fat Charlie -- also the West African and Caribbean trickster god Anansi.

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The high road to Gaimanland, however, is "The Sandman," a comic book series compiled into a 10-volume set of graphic novels (plus ancillary books). To people who care about comics, "The Sandman" needs no introduction; it is a beloved, seminal work that bridged the gap between the form's pop mainstream and its experimental fringe.

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Even if I had read children's literature as a child, Burnett's most famous novel, "The Secret Garden," was considered a girl's book and not something little boys read. When I finally got around to it in the late '80s, I loved it so much that when I finished, I immediately picked up a copy of Burnett's "A Little Princess." I was reading that on the bus one morning when I noticed a businessman in his 40s sitting beside me and eyeing the book. Finally, I nervously allowed my eyes to meet his only to hear him say, "It's a great book, isn't it?" He went on to praise Frances Hodgson Burnett's writing and told me how much he had enjoyed reading her books to his own daughter.

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Hayao Miyazaki's fluid action scenes, painterly uses of color and shade and myth-based storytelling have long made him a legend to cartoon geeks. The makers of Disney's "Mulan," in fact, saw their film as something of a Miyazaki homage for American audiences. Miramax has now gone its parent company one better, commissioning a new English script (by acclaimed comic-book and sci-fi author Neil Gaiman) for "Princess Mononoke," Miyazaki's biggest Japanese hit, along with several major box-office stars to read it.

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