Monday, August 15, 2011

Books 'n' Tunes:

Driving around with the top down on the Zed Drei the other day, running errands. After the sauna that was July, the weather felt wonderful. Temps in the high seventies, low humidity, and nothing even remotely cloudlike marring the sky.

The iPod in the Zed Drei served up "Fly Me Courageous" by Drivin' 'N' Cryin', Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll", and Van Halen doing "Panama", all of which are perfectly cromulent convertible-piloting songs. I was going to drive around the block again just to see what else would come up, but decided not to push my luck.

Then yesterday I sat on the porch finishing up Mark Steyn's After America (Thank you, Masked Reader!) before starting in on American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Do you know, I've never read a solo Gaiman novel before? Roomie says I'm in for a treat.

20 comments:

Joe Allen said...

Roomie just made the understatement of the week.

RevGreg said...

Roomie is right about you being in for a treat, "American Gods" is awesome. "Neverwhere" is my fave Gaiman novel though, you'll have to put it on your list.

El Capitan said...

+1 on 'American Gods'. 'Stardust' is a fun bit of froth.

BGMiller said...

A second on Neverwhere.
I picked up a copy after seeing the six part series from the BBC and loved it.

BGM

The Raving Prophet said...

American Gods is a fantastic story. That type of thing is a shade out of my literary wheelhouse, but it was a great read. Makes you look at the standard side of the road tourist traps in a different light (even though you know it's just fiction).

Ben said...

I'll vote Neverwhere too.

Mikael said...

+1 on American Gods and on Neverwhere. Great books.

Anonymous said...

+1 on "Fly Me Courageous", It's the best album I have that no one in Minnesota has ever heard of.

American Gods was great novel you are going to enjoy it.

Joat

Kristophr said...

Larry Corriea has released the second book of his Hard Magic series as an eARC.

heh.

Chas S. Clifton said...

American Gods is wonderful. Now I want to re-read it.

LabRat said...

American Gods is simply fantastic, though overall I like Gaiman's short fiction more than his novels.

Put me in the minority that didn't care at all for Neverwhere and only somewhat for Stardust, liking the movie better. IMO it took him a few books to learn how to novel without leaving half the job up to a comics artist.

wolfwalker said...

I suppose American Gods could be described as 'good' ... if you like twisted, vile, sadistic horror dredged from the darkest corners of the subconscious. Personally, I don't. It may be a Hugo winner, but my reaction to it was TBAR* somewhere around page 50.


* Throw Book Across Room

Cybrludite said...

I made the mistake of pushing my musical luck with a local oldies station this weekend, and ended up with "Annie's Song" stuck n my head.

Don said...

"American Gods" is awesome, and if you've been to any of the tourist trap locations that figure prominently, you'll never look at them the same way again. Mine was the House on the Rock in Wisconsin, although, probably owing to matters of space and pacing, Gaiman actually only describes a small part of what makes that place so weird and decrepit and fascinating all at the same time.

Fred said...

I have the 10th(?) Anniversery Edition of that one sitting in the stack waiting to be read. The first printing is great, but this one is the author's prefered text.

Anyway, Roberta speaks truth. Of course being from Wisconsin doesn't hurt either.

Justthisguy said...

Girl, you need to cue up some Mozart and get away from the pop culture noise.

MSgt said...

"cromulent convertible-driving songs"

Sweet.

Bram said...

I liked all of Gaiman's books. "American Gods" may be the best. "Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch" was the funniest - the snark was very strong in that one.

aczarnowski said...

The snark in Good Omen comes from Pratchett I think. Great read.

I had a hard time with American Gods. Probably because it was my first Gaiman book and I had no idea what was going on. Since reading, and liking, Neverwhere and Stardust I've known of a while I should give it another shot.

RobertSlaughter said...

I'd love to see you post book reviews of those two. I'd appreciate your thoughts, given you're well read and all.