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)I've not read Good Omens. I'm sort of limited by what I can find on the cheap for audiobooks. Now that I'm done Anansi Boys, I'm not sure what I'll read next. I was thinking of maybe trying out some Agatha Christie, but I'm a little concerned it might be boring.
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Date: 2011-02-12 08:28 am (UTC)Good Omens is an awesome novel.
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Date: 2011-02-12 08:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 08:45 am (UTC)Your best bet is to go with either Miss Marple or Poirot as they are a lot more interesting then her one time only stuff.
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Date: 2011-02-12 08:51 am (UTC)My gran was a lover of golf...not really something we could share in :P
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Date: 2011-02-12 08:43 am (UTC)The Mysterious Affair at Styles [available on Project Gutenberg]
Poirot Investigates [short stories]
Murder on the Orient Express
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Cards on the Table
The Big Four
The Murder at the Vicarage
The Thirteen Problems (The Tuesday Club Murders) [short stories]
The Body in the Library
At Bertram's Hotel
A Caribbean Mystery
Nemesis [to which Dean's last conversation with Death in 6.11 bears a striking resemblance]
The Secret Adversary [available on Project Gutenberg]
Partners in Crime [short stories--VERY funny in places!]
And Then There Were None
Three Blind Mice and Other Stories [short stories]
Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories [short stories]
The Seven Dials Mystery
Ahem. Sorry, lifelong fan. :D You might also enjoy the Cat Who... books by Lillian Jackson Braun (the reader on the audiobooks is wonderful) and the World War I series by Anne Perry--I devoured four of the five books in 24 hours, they're that good.
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Date: 2011-02-12 08:48 am (UTC)Thanks for the recommendations! I will definitely see if my library has those!
My older sister was a huge Agatha Christie fan when she was in high school. At the time, I had convinced myself that I hated both mystery and fantasy genres...so, I never went near them. In recent years, I've come to the conclusion that I probably would actually enjoy mystery novels (since my best friend forced me to read fantasy novels and I liked those)...so yeah, I'll definitely look into Agatha...
Also, thanks for recommending a book for which you already know that the audiobook is good! Yay! Hopefully my library has the audiobooks of those too! So few people seem to read audiobooks these days, yet they are my main source of books, because I don't have time to read printed words! :P