neil gaiman | Lost in a Good Book

Book Bingo 2023 Wrap Up

31 Dec 2023 3 Comments

by Amy in Book Bingo Tags: anna whateley, anne appert, becky albertalli, benjamin alire sáenz, book bingo, book bingo 2023, book bingo 23, book bingo update, bram stoker, cesca major, chris turner, clint mcelroy, douglas adams, emily carroll, erin stewart, imogen markwell-tweed, kaz delaney, laurinda lawrence, louise finch, matt kirkland, nd stevenson, neil gaiman, nikki rae, rebecca burgess, tegan bennett daylight, terry pratchett, wendy dalrymple

After last years complete nonexistent Book Bingo attempt, I am calling this a win. Not only for making it, but also for getting quite a lot of spaces filled. I liked my categories and I think I managed a great variety in books in filling each spot. Of course practically none have reviews, but maybe through the upcoming year I will be able to fill some review gaps with these books. Especially cause some were really great reads.

I am particularly proud of a few of them because they have been incomplete for decades. Decades. Now I can finally say I have finished them. Things like finally finishing The Hitchiker’s series, or finally finishing a book about The Simpsons I started reading sometime prior to 2010. That has to be an achievement in itself.

I took a few chances on these books too, looking for a certain style of book for research purposes, or to fit a holiday mood. Some were because I needed a book in that moment and it suited, others I had been hanging out to read for ages and finally got around to it. I love doing these bingos because it gives me a chance to pick things up, or finally read something I have had sitting on my shelf patiently waiting. It makes me broaden my reading, but it also makes me read the stuff I want to read but find excuse after excuse, or it seems to hard. I might try and force my hand a bit more next year and get through my TBR and my own shelves, especially because this one was filled accidentally. I should try to actively complete it next time. I already don’t like my chances but one can live in hope.

Did you do a bingo card this year? If you’re looking for ideas check through my bingo tag to find previous years and see if you can challenge yourself next year.

Graphic Novel – The Eleventh Hour by Clint McElroy

Self Published – Slither by Nikki Rae

Movie Adaptation – Nimona by ND Stevenson

Own Voices – Peta Lyre’s Rating Normal by Anna Whateley

Non Fiction – How to Be Ace: A Memoir of Growing Up Asexual by Rebecca Burgess

Bisexual MC – Imogen, Obviously by Becky Albertalli

Anthology – Holiday Haunts by Wendy Dalrymple and Imogen Markwell-Tweed

Short Stories – Through the Woods ed. Emily Carroll

Finish a Series – Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

On TBR Pile – The Words We Keep by Erin Stewart

Fairytale Retelling – The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman

Free Choice – Maybe Next Time by Cesca Major

Was a Gift –Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Author You’ve Never Read – The Eternal Return of Clara Hart by Louise Finch

Chosen for the Cover – Blob by Anne Appert

Retelling a Classic – Dracula Daily by Matt Kirkland/Bram Stoker

Published This Year – Dial M for Mudcake by Kaz Delaney

One Word Title – Royals by Tegan Bennett Daylight

Set in Australia – Law of Entanglement by Laurinda Lawrence

Started and Never Finished – Planet Simpson by Chris Turner

Owned But Never Read – Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

24 Oct 2018 2 Comments

by Amy in 5 Stars, Fantasy Tags: fantasy, five stars, neil gaiman

Published: 18th June 2013
Publisher: William Morrow Books
Pages: 384
Format: Paperback
Genre: Fantasy
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ – 5 Stars

Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn’t thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she’d claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.

Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.

A groundbreaking work from a master, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out. It is a stirring, terrifying, and elegiac fable as delicate as a butterfly’s wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark.

I read this when it first came out and I bought the beautiful hardcover that Gaiman signed and devoured it in one sitting. This is where Neil Gaiman shines: writing dark, mysterious stories that are like a new breed of fairytale and yet they are still so real as well. I loved this book, it was mysterious, dark, funny, obscure, strange, all these things in this one little book.

I loved the structure of the story too, it’s framed in a way that makes you think you’ll get answers, but you don’t, not really. Not that this takes away from the beautiful storytelling. You never find out who the funeral is for, thought I think either we’re either not supposed to know because it is either irrelevant or it is obvious. You can certainly find your own answers based on a few snippets here and there but nothing concrete. This open ending only adds to the mystical nature of the story and though answers would be nice, they are by no means necessary.

What I like about child protagonists is that so little phases them usually, but they do get scared and they get scared excellently. So while little George seems to accept the Hempstock family and all their strangeness quite well, monsters and mysterious women unsettle him, and the way Gaiman expresses this fear was wonderfully done. It is an odd thing to like in a book, child fear, but this book is so much about what it means to be a child and Gaiman captures it beautifully and with a touch of magic.

You get caught up in the story that you kind of forget it is bookended, it is only a memory, a very vivid memory, and it is rather wonderful how Gaiman has connected everything together. Nothing is completely solved, but you understand that things will be ok at the same time. It is quite strange and certainly not the kind of story that would be enjoyed by everyone, but I certainly thought it was excellent and I loved this peculiar journey Gaiman took me on.

You can purchase The Ocean at the End of the Lane via the following

Booktopia | Book Depository | Audible

Amazon | Amazon Aust | Wordery

Angus & Robertson | Dymocks

Fishpond | QBD

Stardust by Neil Gaiman

26 Jul 2018 Leave a comment

by Amy in 4 Stars, Audiobook, Fantasy Tags: Audiobook, fantasy, four stars, movie adaptation, neil gaiman

Published: October 1st 1998 (print) / 1 May 2017 (audio)
Publisher: Harper Perennial / Bolinda / BBC audio
Pages: 248 / 2 hours 32 minutes
Narrator: Eleanor Bron
Format: Audio
Genre: Fantasy
★ ★ ★ ★ – 4 Stars

Life moves at a leisurely pace in the tiny town of Wall—named after the imposing stone barrier which separates the town from a grassy meadow. Here, young Tristran Thorn has lost his heart to the beautiful Victoria Forester and for the coveted prize of her hand, Tristran vows to retrieve a fallen star and deliver it to his beloved. It is an oath that sends him over the ancient wall and into a world that is dangerous and strange beyond imagining…

I had watched the movie years before I even knew it was a book, and was glad enough time had passed that I didn’t remember it so I couldn’t compare the two. I listened to this as an audiobook too which was actually a full-cast dramatization from the BBC. That made it a really great experience, aside from the fact they get a bit too detailed and you have to listen to people talk while they’re eating and drinking which for me was super uncomfortable to listen to. The cast did a great job telling the story. It had great voice casting as well as accompanying soundtrack and sound effects. It was a little something extra than a normal audiobook experience.

One thing I found really interesting about this is that it felt like a short story, even though it was a full novel. The whole book had this duel sense to it, it had a simple premise but it felt full whilst reading it, and it felt substantial even when it wasn’t an overly busy plot.

Tristran is naïve in a way, he is in love which makes him idealistic. He doesn’t pick up on cues from Victoria about her lesser interest in him and he is determined to win her heart. On his quest to find the fallen star we see his good nature shine, and we become involved with his story and worry for his safety because there is no telling where this story might go. The unexpected and the cruel happen much like any fairytale story, but there is still a sense of good shining through.

The thing I love about magic is how the rules can be interpreted and how the regular rules of the universe don’t work. I loved the way Gaiman told this story, I loved how magic is used and how the rules of the magical world play out in the human one in different ways. There are twists and turns and for a simple find and recover story, there are intricate subplots happening that intertwine and connect, even when you don’t realise it. This is where Gaiman is good at his storytelling, creating a story that captivates you and pulls you in, without making it needlessly complicated or grand, yet still providing substance and beauty.

One thing which I both enjoyed and was a bit struck by, was the ending. It is great certainly, but it does end rather abruptly. You get a satisfactory ending for the story that’s told, but I feel like more could have been said just to round off the edges better instead of cutting it so sharply. But that may be the way of the fairy tale Gaiman was trying to tell.

When I finished I did sit down with the intention to rewatch the movie, but from the first instance I saw the differences I turned it off. Even if it was a decent adaptation, one of the things I loved most about the book was changed in the movie and I chose to preserve that memory instead. The way Gaiman uses magic was some of the best parts and when that didn’t translate I chose to not continue, though I’m sure it was a decent movie, it was more a personal choice than that it was a poor adaptation.

You can purchase Stardust via the following

Dymocks | Booktopia

Book Depository | QBD

Amazon | Amazon Aust

Fishpond | Wordery | Angus & Robertson

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

04 Jul 2018 4 Comments

by Amy in 2 Stars, Fantasy Tags: fantasy, mythology, neil gaiman, two stars

Published: 6th March 2018
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Pages: 304
Format: Paperback
Genre: Fantasy
★ ★ – 2 Stars

Neil Gaiman, long inspired by ancient mythology in creating the fantastical realms of his fiction, presents a bravura rendition of the Norse gods and their world from their origin through their upheaval in Ragnarok. In Norse Mythology, Gaiman stays true to the myths in envisioning the major Norse pantheon: Odin, the highest of the high, wise, daring, and cunning; Thor, Odin’s son, incredibly strong yet not the wisest of gods; and Loki son of a giant blood brother to Odin and a trickster and unsurpassable manipulator.

Gaiman fashions these primeval stories into a novelistic arc that begins with the genesis of the legendary nine worlds and delves into the exploits of deities, dwarfs, and giants. Through Gaiman’s deft and witty prose, these gods emerge with their fiercely competitive natures, their susceptibility to being duped and to duping others, and their tendency to let passion ignite their actions, making these long-ago myths breathe pungent life again.

I know that this is a Neil Gaiman book, and Neil Gaiman is a great storyteller, this time, however, I can’t say that is the case. I loved his work for younger kids, Coraline and The Graveyard Book are amazing. But this…it was boring. It was dull and read like an information dump and I couldn’t get into the “story”. I’d read Gaiman’s introduction and heard all the praise from reviews and readers and I was ready to be taken into this world of mythology alongside Loki and Thor and all their misadventures. I wanted to be thrown into this world and be captured by their charm and cheek and might. But there was none of that. It was dry and needed a bit more substance to make it less like a textbook of names and facts.

I’m sure this was not Gaiman’s intention, mythology doesn’t need to just be “this god did this and then that happened and then this other god did this” which is how this felt for me reading it. A bit of interesting and creative storytelling could have been included to make it read more like a story without losing the well known mythology. I wasn’t expecting it to read like The Odyssey or anything like that, I didn’t need poetic verse, but I thought Gaiman could have made it more seamless and natural, more of a novelisation of these myths. This was not a story, nor was it even a bunch of short stories. It was a weird experience and one that I grew to dislike very early one.

Now, I will admit some parts were funny. I did laugh at a few scenes and lines, and in the end I had learnt things I hadn’t known about Norse mythology. The problem was that by the midway point I was losing interest and resorted to skimming a few stories and going back in for the final few chapters. The disappointing thing was that nothing much of the stories was lost on me since the book just had key points listed one after another I could get the gist of what I needed to learn and the story that was trying to be told.

The final chapters were interesting, Ragnarok being a hard thing to really ruin, but it was the same style of writing that failed to grab me. I chose to focus instead on looking at the bigger picture and thinking back to the entire story as a whole and making my own story and connections to bring the entire mythology to an end. Something maybe Gaiman could have done a bit better himself.

You can purchase Norse Mythology via the following

Book Depository | Dymocks | Booktopia

Amazon | Amazon Aust

World of Books | Fishpond | Angus & Robertson

QBD | The Nile

Chu’s Day by Neil Gaiman

31 Mar 2017 Leave a comment

by Amy in 2 Stars, The Picture Book Corner Tags: children's picture book, neil gaiman, two stars

Published: January 2013
Publisher: HarperCollins Children’s
Illustrator: Adam Rex
Pages: 30
Format: Hardcover Picture Book
★ ★ – 2 Stars

Chu is a little panda with a big sneeze.
When Chu sneezes, bad things happen.
In dusty library, diner pepper, circus tent,
Will Chu sneeze today?

This may be the shortest review I’ve done yet, even for a picture book. I just don’t have much to say about it. After seeing Gaiman talk about writing and publishing this book for so long I was excited to find it at the library. Having now finished it, I have to say I’m a little disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, it was cute. But I also kind of expected more.

The layout is nice, it’s suspenseful in how Rex and Gaiman have set out the text and the illustrations, but there is just something missing. I don’t even think I know what it is, but I finished and kind of went, is that it? I’ll give it credit, it’s cute, the story I can see would appeal to some people, but I found it a tad anti-climactic unfortunately.