Staff Recommendation #36: More Neil Gaiman!

"[Gaiman] is, simply put, a treasure house of story, and we are lucky to have him in any media." -- Stephen King

I am a fairly recent fan of Neil Gaiman and have only read a few of his works, but he has quickly become one of my favorite authors. Actually, I was well aware of him for quite some time before I read any of his books. At some point I realized that I needed to stop planning on reading Gaiman and just do it. I'm so glad I did!

While I still have many more of his titles on my to-read list, here are a few that I have already read and have quickly become some of my favorite books. Enjoy!



-- Neverwhere (1997)

This was the first Gaiman book I ever read after a suggestion from a friend. She knew of my interest in parallel and alternate worlds and thought this would be a good way to start reading Neil Gaiman. Unassuming (and somewhat milquetoasty) Richard Mayhew helps a stranger on the streets of London one evening and his life is forever changed. The stranger, Door, takes Richard on an adventure through London Below. To reclaim his life, which mysteriously disappears after his first encounter with Door, he must accompany her on a quest to avenge her family's death. Traversing the long forgotten London, Richard discovers a side of himself he didn't know existed.

Request Neverwhere from The Catalog



-- The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains: A Tale of Travel and Darkness with Pictures of All Kinds (2014)

The Truth Is a Cave In The Black Mountains is a short story first published in Stories: All New Tales in 2010. In August of that year Neil Gaiman read this before a sold out audience at the Sydney Opera House. Along with artwork especially created for the event, Gaiman was also accompanied by a string quartet. In 2014 the original artwork and the story were newly published. This short haunting story is a story of family, a search for a treasure and an otherworldly creature. I enjoyed it so much in book form that I also listened to the audio version, read by the author with the music used for the live performance. It's a fairy tale for adults.

Request The Truth Is a Cave In The Black Mountains from The Catalog

-- American Gods (2001)

American Gods is one of those books I had been hearing about for years, but couldn’t tell you what it was about. Even when I got around to reading it I don't think I was still sure of what I was getting into. But boy was it worth it! American Gods is a great, big epic story of the gods of stories and myths that the many American immigrants brought with them when they landed in this country. It’s also the story of how we have forgotten many of them along the way. Shadow, just released from prison, finds out that his wife has just died in terrible car accident. He then meets Mr. Wednesday who gives him a job and exposes him to a world that he didn't know existed. Shadow then becomes entangled in the battle that has erupted among those forgotten gods with Shadow the key to it all.

Request American Gods from The Catalog


--Post by Tracy