Coraline Reading – First Congregational Church of Berkeley

Fowarded from Neil, from Amy Burton at HarperCollins

NEW YORK (June 11, 2002) – HarperCollins Children’s Books announced today that New York Times best-selling author Neil Gaiman will launch his first-ever novel for children, Coraline (July 2002; $15.99; ages 8 up), in the Bay Area.

Cody’s Books of Berkeley will host the exclusive West Coast launch event on Tuesday, July 2 at 6:30 p.m. (doors open at 5:30 p.m.) at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley on 2345 Channing Way.(directions,map)

Starting at 6:30 p.m., Gaiman will do a rare complete reading of Coraline, which has been called “bittersweet and playful” (San Francisco Chronicle), “magnificently creepy” (Kirkus Reviews) and is being likened to a modern-day Alice in Wonderland. Signed copies of Coraline, selected backlist titles and audio will be available for sale at the event.

Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for children, and go on sale beginning June 17 at both Cody’s Books locations (2454 Telegraph Ave. at Haste; 1730 Fourth St.); www.codysbooks.com; telephone orders to 510-845-7852; email orders to info@codysbooks.com. All major credit cards are accepted. The purchase of a ticket entitles the holder to a $3 discount on Coraline books and audio.

A separate East Coast launch event for Coraline is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, July 11 at Barnes & Noble, Union Square in New York City. There will be no other U.S. events until the fall.

Neil adds:

And going mainly from feedback from here [ie the journal], we’ve elected to make this one a reading, rather than a signing. So it’ll be three hours of comfortably listening to a story, rather than five hours of standing in a long line for thirty seconds of hello. We’ll have an interval half-way through, in case any of the kids can’t keep going, and for people to get lemonade and cookies etc.

As you can see, it’s a ticketed event, to cover the cost of renting the hall, but the tickets are cheap and easy to get (and will count against the purchase of a Coraline). We also got somewhere with enough seating that we’re not worried about it selling out. Spread the word across the West.

Cody’s also has an interview with Neil from BEA posted on their website.