Book Awards Reading Challenge

Cross-posted from my blog.

Title: American Gods
Author: Neil Gaiman
ISBN: 0-380-97365-0
Publisher: William Marrow-An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
Pages: 461/Hardcover
Rating: 4/5


I had won this book from Dewey in October 2007. For some reason or other, I could only get around it now. Usually I finish a book within three days maximum. This took me a while, around three weeks.

American Gods is not an easy book to review. To read too, one needs to concentrate a lot. You miss something, you have to go back.

Shadow is in the jail for the past three years and waits for his release so that he can get back to his wife Laura and a new job with one of his closest friends. When he is unexpectedly released one day before his due date, he is taken by surprise by the turn of events. He is a free man yet in one stroke of luck he loses everything he had held dear. He meets a strange man named Wednesday, who offers to give him work. He accepts it. There is start of an adventure which takes us in a picaresque journey across America where we meet strange people who are either God or really evil. In every page there is that touch of the unexpectedness which keeps us totally riveted.

The story flows via magic, fantasy and hallucinations and in dream like sequences. It takes us to forgotten Gods of olden times and emerging new ones, juxtaposing the two somewhere in between. Although mystical, each page makes us believe in it. There are contradictions too which somehow make this tale of imagination somehow inevitable. Here dream and nightmare merge at some points.

We meet such intersting characters like Easter, Mr Nancy, Czernobog, so-called Gods and people or non-people who think that they are in the side of the good. Taken as a whole, it can be read as a classic tale of good versus the evil. Shadow manages to emerge out of the shadow of lies, deceit and falsehood.

As an Indian, I particularly liked references to Indian Gods like Kali and Elephat-headed God, Ganesha. Our Gods are like humans and can interact with us at all levels. Thats way of the American Gods too in this novel.

I have read Neverwhere by Gaiman before this. Whatever said and done, I think I prefer Neverwhere more than American Gods.

It had been over 20 years since I had read a Stephen King book. I used to love horror and love his books. I really, really did. That changed and I don't like horror at all now. I like scary, suspenseful stories-just not horror. I think I had convinced myself that surely there wouldn't be that much horror because he put so much of his wife/marriage into the story. I guess there probably wasn't as much as in his other books, but it was still too much for me.

Stephen King had said that he wrote this after considering what could happen to his wife if he had died in the car accident that he had. I do think he put quite a bit of himself and her into this story. I liked the beginning of the book very much, but then in the middle there was a little too much of the horror element for me. Lisey's husband Scott flashes back to a horror-full childhood. There were some crazy things that happen to Lisey as well that bothered me because I kept thinking, "How can he think of these things happening to his wife?"

Anyway, it was a good book for the R.I.P Challenge, but I don't think I'll be reading another King book for awhile. If you know of one that is very tame, I might try it. Otherwise, there's just too much horror in King for this wimpy woman.

2006, 509 pp.

Rating: 3.5

Lost Boy, Lost Girl
Peter Straub

This book won the Bram Stoker Award in 2003 if I go by the list provided here. As this is not part of the Tentative Twelve list I came up with that somehow revolved into a Final Twelve in my book blog, I'm including it as an additional read as I plan to go through the Final Twelve after all. There's no rush, the deadline is next year. Hahaha! I probably need to update the list (as well as my extras) later.

For now here's the link to my thoughts on Lost Boy, Lost Girl. This is a really lovely book.

Lisey's Story
Stephen King

I haven't read Stephen King in a while. Unlike others who buy every SK book available, I have managed to get by with only a handful of his books. I've seen the movies though. I'm not really sure how faithful they were to the written works but one of my favorite films include The Shawshank Redemption.

Some books I dearly loved like The Stand, The Green Mile, The Eyes of the Dragon and the Dark Tower (even if I haven't read the last book from that series, for one reason or another I had it shelved until I reread all six books prior to it), one scared the hell out of me (The Shining), and one somewhat creepy (It) but all of them are generally more than your average good reads. There was a time I wanted to buy The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon but I never got around to doing that. I was more like the occasional fan. If I like what I read at the back of his book I'd probably buy it. That's how I had all the abovementioned books (except The Eyes of the Dragon which was gift). Plus I have On Writing, still unread. Gee, I'm stressing myself with two of my unread Kings!

And Lisey's Story will be part of my treasured King books (despite my paperback copy which somehow bleeds ink and smudges some letters after turning the pages). It was such a pleasure to read.

It's a story about love, marriage, letting go when the dearly beloved passed on and the love that endures after death. It's also a story about families and the blood ties that either gives strength or destroys, of sisterhood and the unspoken commitment to be there for each other no matter what happens.

It's also a tale of madness. One that kills and one that restores and refreshes one's senses. A madness that believes that not everything is at it seems and that this world is but one of many.

Reading Stephen King is opening yourself to his world, his language, his manner of laying down the tale. You either get him or not. You either love the play of words, the atmosphere he creates and the characters who mouths stuff you may or may not understand. I initially had difficulty with some of the accented words and I had to speak (at least in my mind) some in a Southern accent, which I have to admit I have very limited exposure to since I'm not from the US nor anywhere near it.

But what's more important to me than the accents or even the made up words that can be a bit tricky (I sometimes turn back the pages to recall what the hell SOWISA means even if I know the context from whence it came) is how everything falls into place in the end. And in this, the master of horror never disappoints.

One last thing.

I knew I have read BOOL before. I just can't remember where. A search pointed me to Wikipedia's entry on Lisey's Story stating that the phrase "Bool! The end!" appeared in "Wizard and Glass" which is the fourth book in the Dark Tower series. It's also the book that reeled me in because of the Dave McKean illustrations.

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This post originally appeared in my blog titled as Strap It On.

I didn't know that this book won the Bram Stoker Award for 2006 until now. So I'm including this in my additional reads for the Book Awards Reading Challenge as well. Of course I still plan to go through the rest of my Final Twelve as I've read one on the list and another two off from my pool of books. My thoughts on those books to follow, hopefully soon.

Holley’s Review #2 of 12
The Panic Hand: Stories by Jonathan Carroll
1996 Bram Stoker Award for Collections

What would you do if your best friend were having an affair with your imaginary friend? What lengths would they go to in order to be together if the imaginary friend’s existence depended on your unhappiness and misery? Would you go into hiding if a little girl told you all of the world’s animals were going to revolt and kill everyone? What if God developed Alzheimer’s disease? How would you know if those threatening phone calls were actually being made by the very person you’re dating, who at this very minute is watching your windows with binoculars? What if unpleasant dreams failed to disappear when you woke up? Can writing about the death of your child keep it from actually happening?

All of these dark concoctions and more can be found in Jonathan Carroll’s disturbing collection of short stories, The Panic Hand. You will explore the darker side of human nature along with the other, seedier sides no one could have imagined existed. Not all of the stories found here are scary, but they will make you take a second and third look at the world around you. Great Halloween reading from a master storyteller!

Happy Reading!
htw

Winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel, 2003

This book was a good mix of mystery and horror. I liked how the point of view switched from Mark while he was obsessed with the house and his uncle Tim trying to figure out what happened to his nephew.

More book information here.

I couldn't narrow it down to 12 so I picked 16 and I will see how many I get through during the year. As I read them I will put up reviews on my blog at Rhinoa's Ramblings

The books I have picked are:

1) Perdido Street Station - China Mieville (Arthur C Clarke Award)
2) Quicksilver - Neil Stephenson (Arthur C Clarke Award)
3) Iron Council - China Mieville (Arthur C Clarke Award)
4) Life of Pi - Yann Martel (Man Booker Prize)
5) The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood (Man Booker Prize)
6) The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy (Man Booker Prize)
7) Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha - Roddy Doyle (Man Booker Prize)
8) American Gods - Neil Gaiman (Bram Stoker Award and Hugo Award)
9) Eats, Shoots & Leaves - Truss (British Book Prize)
10) Wild Swans - Chang (British Book Prize)
11) Beowolf - Seamus Heany (Costa/Whitbread Prize)
12) Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood (Giller Prize)
13) Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - Susanne Clarke (Hugo and World Fantasy Award)
14) On Beauty - Zadie Smith (Orange Prize)
15) Beloved - Toni Morrison (Pulitzer Prize)
16) Perfume - Patrick Suskind (World Fantasy Award)
17) Bridge to Terabithia - Katherine Paterson (Newbery Medal)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_Stoker_Award_for_Best_Novel

2010 A Dark Matter by Peter Straub
2009 Audrey's Door by Sarah Langan
2008 Duma Key by Stephen King
2007 The Missing by Sarah Langan
2006 Lisey's Story by Stephen King
2005 (tie) Creepers by David Morrell
Dread in the Beast by Charlee Jacob
2004 In the Night Room by Peter Straub
2003 lost boy, lost girl by Peter Straub
2002 The Night Class by Tom Piccirilli
2001 American Gods by Neil Gaiman
2000 Traveling Vampire Show by Richard Laymon
1999 Mr. X by Peter Straub
1998 Bag of Bones by Stephen King
1997 Children of the Dusk by Janet Berliner
1996 The Green Mile by Stephen King
1995 Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates
1994 Dead in the Water by Nancy Holder
1993 The Throat by Peter Straub
1992 The Blood of the Lamb by Thomas F. Monteleone
1991 Boy's Life by Robert R. McCammon
1990 Mine by Robert R. McCammon
1989 Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons
1988 Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
1987 (tie) Misery by Stephen King
Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon