I’m so excited to be starting my third Cannonball Read! I can’t believe with my crazy life that I got so many books in last year. Here’s hoping to top that goal this year (and hopefully, by the end of 2015, I’ll be DONE with school). I have a few goals in mind: read the books I’ve never read on my shelf. Last year, I determined to buy no books until I had read them and decided that yes, I would like them to occupy […]
The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
This book is 14 years old, I am, as ever, late to the party. I am also a latecomer to Terry Pratchett (still haven’t read any of the big series, but I’ve read a few others and they’re great), but I’m learning. The combination of Pratchett and Gaiman is brilliant, and it’s a shame they haven’t done more together. So, anyway, satan’s son is born in Oxfordshire. There’s a mix up at the hospital, and the little anti-christ goes home with the wrong family. He’s […]
M Is for Magic by Neil Gaiman
I somehow never read this short story collection by Neil Gaiman, possibly because it’s aimed at a younger audience. Of course, so were Coraline and The Graveyard Book (a precursor of which is featured in this collection), which were incredible, so it only made sense to pick up M is for Magic as well when I spied it on the shelf of a friend. It’s a good book to snuggle under a blanket with and read all in one sitting. “Stories you read when you’re the right age never quite leave you. […]
American Gods By Neil Gaiman
I first read American Gods about 5 years ago. I loved it–I loved the characters, the little “Coming to America” interludes, how strange and sad the story was, everything. I loved how Neil Gaiman took one of the most stoic characters I’ve ever read — our man Shadow — who should have been boring in his utter acceptance of everything around him, but instead acting as a sounding board for the reader. Shadow absorbed all the insanity around him, took the view of “well, this is my job”, and moved on. […]
Never trust button eyes.
There’s no one like Neil Gaiman. He walks the line between faerie and frightening with incredible deftness, and he mines the wondrous/horrifying imagination of children in a way that cuts your heart as an adult. It’s remarkable and scary all at once. In other news: I finally read Coraline. I devoured it in a big gulp, but I also shivered in some parts. And the illustrations definitely enhance the book. Coraline Jones is a young girl whose family has moved to a big house. But […]
What, no mention of his bodkin?
Neil Gaiman writing about Norse mythology? No way, not him.