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The call of a Coppersmith is known for its long, repetitive call that resembles the banging of a hammer on copper.

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The Coppersmith Barbet's (Megalaima haemacephala) metronomic call has been likened to a coppersmith striking metal with a hammer. It can be heard from afar but difficult to locate. On this occasion I was fortunate to have a clear view of the bird in an African Tulip Tree.

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WEBSITE: Animals on National Geographic.com

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WEBSITE: Animals on National Geographic.com

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Use this resource for great facts, images, & other resources about all sorts of animals!

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Your home for all things animals on National Geographic.

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Chuchundra in "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" is a muskrat.

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Darzee and his wife are tailorbirds in "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi"

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Read more of Kipling's celebrated short stories!

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http://bit.ly/1g8ssd5

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A rare first edition with a poignant handwritten note to his young daughter was been discovered in 2010. http://bbc.in/192fUQ7

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Neil Gaiman used The Jungle Book as a model for The Graveyard Book

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Neil Gaiman used The Jungle Book as a model for The Graveyard Book

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Author's blog postreveals

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I've uploaded much of the DreamHaven audio CDs to Last.FM, at http://www.last.fm/music/Neil+Gaiman. Some of the tracks are downloadable, others are playable but not downloadable, and of course you can buy the actual CDs from DreamHaven's online shop at www.neilgaiman.net . (Currently trying to figure out why Telling Tales keeps coming up as Unknown Album, but I'm sure it'll get fixed, sooner or later.)

Chapter 8 of The Graveyard Book is nearly written. He's got about 20 feet left to walk.

Normally when I finish a book, it's over. Maybe there are more stories, but it's done. I get letters from kids asking why I don't do another Coraline book, and maybe she's at school and the Other Mother could be pretending to be her teacher and... but I can't really imagine writing another Coraline book. It's done.

The Graveyard Book on the other hand, seems to be generating other stories in my head. I guess I'm really interested in what happens to Bod next. Interesting. I suppose it's understandable -- my model was The Jungle Book, and there was The Second Jungle Book. (Although The Graveyard Book also reminds me in odd ways of Kim. And I always wanted to know what happened to Kim next.)

...

This made me smile:

I am just wondering if the Birthday Thing voting will include superdelegates? Perhaps other famous authors, some bigwigs at Harper Collins, etc. I mean, you wouldn't want to leave voting to the people, would you?

I'm happy to watch democracy in action here. It's one person-who-clicks, one vote.

...

Hi Neil,

I hope all is going well with the new book, I am looking forward to reading it immensely when it is published.

I would be interested to know if you have kept any of the original art from The Sandman over the years. I know that the artists sell their work on after DC have finished with it and wondered if you requested certain pages or covers or were gifted them by artists, if so which page or pages do you cherish most.

Best Regards

I don't have much -- off the top of my head (and I'm sure to leave something important out) a couple of Dave McKean covers, a page from Colleen Doran's lovely Facade, a Shawn MacManus page from Three Septembers and a January, a Jill Thompson Brief Lives page, the double page of the amazing Michael Zulli sea serpent, the final Death and Dream spread from the Kindly Ones, and the first page of the last issue. I have a lovely Mike Dringenberg Sandman painting he did as an advert for a signing at Night Flight in Utah. A Jay Muth Dream pin-up. A Moebius Death I bought from a gallery. And, apart from an amazing page by Michael Zulli that was a test for the pencils effect of The Wake (which I should talk to DC about reproducing in the last of the Absolute Sandman volumes) I think that's about it.

And I treasure them all.

...

It's Valentine's Day tomorrow. If you're stuck for a present, you could always get this for the object of your affection...

...

What kind of book is The Graveyard Book? What type of audience is it for? Older? Younger? I know you're not finished with it yet, but will it be a novella a la Stardust or a novel a la American Gods?

It will be about twice the length of Coraline -- a novel, not a novella.

It's eight stories, each more or less complete in itself, each different in tone, each story set about two years after the one that precedes it, that placed side by side make one big story. Or I hope they do.

I think it's "all ages", whatever that means. It's a book I wish I'd had as a kid, and had always imagined as a children's book, but the reaction from the adults who've read it so far is scarily enthusiastic, and I'm not making any compromises in it. (Having said that, nobody has read any further than chapter six, except me, and Lorraine when she was typing it.)

Here's a youTube video of me reading Chapter Four in San Jose last year. You can make up your own mind.

Labels: art pages from Sandman, last fm, The Graveyard Book, voting

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I've uploaded much of the DreamHaven audio CDs to Last.FM, at http://www.last.fm/music/Neil+Gaiman. Some of the tracks are downloadable, others are playable but not downloadable, and of course you can buy the actual CDs from DreamHaven's online shop at www.neilgaiman.net .

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Info about the animatd version of "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" watched in class

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Directed by S. Suri, Aleksandr Zguridi. With Igor Alekseyev, Vera Altayskaya, Aleksey Batalov, Irina Kartashyova. Rikki is a young mongoose who is adopted by a human family after nearly drowning in the river. He returns the favour by protecting them from two murderous cobra.

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Article & video

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Rudyard Kipling was an English author famous for an array of works like 'Just So Stories' and 'The Jungle Book.' He received the 1907 Nobel Prize in Literature.

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Learn more from EW.com

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Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu in talks to direct 'The Jungle Book'

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Alejandro González Iñárritu is in early talks to direct a live-action adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book for Warner Bros....

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Rudyard won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907

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Nobelprize.org, The Official Web Site of the Nobel Prize

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Including Massachusetts

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A map depicting sites Kipling visited.

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Video of a King Cobra and Mongoose fighting

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Cobra vs. Mongoose | National Geographic

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How does a mongoose stand up to a cobra? You might be surprised at the outcome. ➡ Subscribe: http://bit.ly/NatGeoSubscribe About National Geographic: National Geographic is the world's premium destination for science, exploration, and adventure. Through their world-class scientists, photographers, journalists, and filmmakers, Nat Geo gets you closer to the stories that matter and past the edge of what's possible.

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First edition cover 1894; These stories were written when Kipling lived in Vermont.