Anansi Boys
Feb. 11th, 2011 07:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hells_half_acreI hope everyone is enjoying the east coast feed of Supernatural! I'm about to take off to my friend's place to watch the west feed (or the PVRed, east feed)...so, I'll be posting my quick reaction later, as usual, yay!
Anyway, I just finished Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. Since I posted about American Gods, I figured I should post about this one too.
I liked it. It's hard to say whether I liked it more or less than American Gods, because the two books were very different. Anansi Boys is far less dense and far more traditionally-novelly (if that makes any sense). American Gods, I thought, had a bit of a wonky format, but Anansi Boys didn't feel that way...it was more story and less world-building perhaps.
(Oh, when I posted about American Gods, I forgot to say how much I loved the little short stories between chapters sometimes...especially the New York Cabbie one...that one was so deliciously perfect and creepy).
It occurred to me, while reading Anansi Boys, that I usually only read books about white people...I had never noticed this until now. I'm trying to figure out if this is the first time I ever read a story that had non-white protagonists. Way to live in a bubble of Caucasian-ness, me.
The other thing I thought I would mention is that the narrator of my audiobook was fantastic. The book was read by Lenny Henry, and I know nothing about him, except that his reading of this book was one of the best readings of a book I've ever heard. I'd put him right up there with Jim Dale (is that right?) - the dude who reads the Harry Potter books. Actually, I'd go so far as to rank him even slightly above that...I especially liked his voice to Tiger, it was PURRRRFECT...and really, he had everyone perfect. It was really well done. I wonder if you can search audiobooks by narrator?
So, yes, Anansi Boys was a good book...and I'm really glad I decided that Dean was a fan of this book in that drabble I wrote the other week. It fits him perfectly.
Anyway, I just finished Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. Since I posted about American Gods, I figured I should post about this one too.
I liked it. It's hard to say whether I liked it more or less than American Gods, because the two books were very different. Anansi Boys is far less dense and far more traditionally-novelly (if that makes any sense). American Gods, I thought, had a bit of a wonky format, but Anansi Boys didn't feel that way...it was more story and less world-building perhaps.
(Oh, when I posted about American Gods, I forgot to say how much I loved the little short stories between chapters sometimes...especially the New York Cabbie one...that one was so deliciously perfect and creepy).
It occurred to me, while reading Anansi Boys, that I usually only read books about white people...I had never noticed this until now. I'm trying to figure out if this is the first time I ever read a story that had non-white protagonists. Way to live in a bubble of Caucasian-ness, me.
The other thing I thought I would mention is that the narrator of my audiobook was fantastic. The book was read by Lenny Henry, and I know nothing about him, except that his reading of this book was one of the best readings of a book I've ever heard. I'd put him right up there with Jim Dale (is that right?) - the dude who reads the Harry Potter books. Actually, I'd go so far as to rank him even slightly above that...I especially liked his voice to Tiger, it was PURRRRFECT...and really, he had everyone perfect. It was really well done. I wonder if you can search audiobooks by narrator?
So, yes, Anansi Boys was a good book...and I'm really glad I decided that Dean was a fan of this book in that drabble I wrote the other week. It fits him perfectly.
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Date: 2011-02-12 08:09 am (UTC)Lenny Henry is a British comedian and a friend of Gaiman - they worked together on the Neverwhere TV series which actually preceded the book I think. I like that book. Henry recently did Othello "oop North" and it was amazing but so different from his usual stuff. He's pretty famous in Britain.
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Date: 2011-02-12 08:13 am (UTC)Canada is kind of a weird place to live, because we get a mix of British and American things...so we get the British editions of Harry Potter in print, but we get the American audiobooks. :P
Thanks for the Lenny Henry info! When I went to my friend's place tonight, and mentioned his name, she filled me in too! I didn't even realize he was married to Dawn French. My friend's husband is British, so she's slightly more aware of British things than I am! But yeah, I wish he read more audiobooks...his reading was really amazing. I'm officially a fan, and I haven't even seen him or heard him in anything else.