Neil Gaiman on James Thurber's The 13 Clocks

Because it's not enough that we asked the man about his own work during this interview we just published. No, we had to be like, "So, uh, Neil – is there some book that's a longtime favorite of yours but that doesn't have the wider readership you think it deserves?"

"Yes," said Gaiman, "and that's a book that I do not know why it's not a classic. I actually read it, two weeks ago, to my wife – and, technically, to my son. But, given that I read it during the first week of his life, I don't suppose he's going to remember it, forever treasure me doing all the voices. But I read it after Amanda was exhausted from childbirth. For about eight nights, I read her The 13 Clocks by James Thurber. And James Thurber is still famed as one of the country's finest humorists, and The 13 Clocks is a wonderful, beautifully written, incredibly funny fairy tale that does a lot of the things that The Princess Bride or Shrek did – long before The Princess Bride or Shrek. It's just gentle, loving, funny, and has the most glorious use of language. People who've read it at the right age will start quoting it to each other.

"And yet for some reason it was out of print when I came to America in 1992," said Gaiman. "I went looking for a copy for my kids – because my old copy, that I had when I was a boy, was falling apart. And I had to buy an obscure secondhand copy from Canada – and that's ridiculous. And every now and then I'd write about it on my blog, and one day I was contacted by New York Review Books, who said they'd bring it back into print if I wrote the introduction for it. So I wrote them an introduction, and more recently it came out in paperback – so it's finally back in print. And I just hope one day it will find its readers."