All the stories are Anansi stories.
I'm probably the last person on the planet to read Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys, but just in case I'm not:
Buy it. Read it. Now. No, seriously.
This was the book I was looking for when I originally went in search of something to read after finishing and adoring Neverwhere. Unfortunately, this book had not been published at that time, so I bought American Gods, which I started and then put away for later because it had the same gravity and grit but none of the humor and whimsy. Next I tried Stardust, which I read all the way through, and liked for its own sake, but which I could never quite take as seriously as I had done Neverwhere. Anansi Boys has the grit, the believable peril, the sense that a happy ending isn't necessarily inevitable that Stardust didn't have. It also has the light-hearted voice and the eccentric flights of fancy that were absent in American Gods (or at least the first five chapters of it). It's not at all a sequel to Neverwhere, but it delivered the same combination of delighted laughter and wide-eyed nail-biting that made Neverwhere a perennial favorite of mine.
Bill actually read this before I did, which is unusual since he usually sticks to thrillers and sci-fi in his own reading and leaves the fantasy for when I read aloud to him. As I read Anansi Boys, I found myself very disappointed that I wouldn't get a chance to read it to my husband. So many distinctive voices, so many delicious turns of phrase...this would have been such a pleasure to read aloud, though I'm not sure I could have done justice to the West Indian dialect.
As with Neverwhere (I'm sorry, I don't mean to keep comparing them, I just can't stop because I love them both so much and for the same reasons), this book boasts a cast of characters that are a pleasure to read and easy to care about. I sympathized with Charlie (who needs a hug), was deeply amused by Spider, wanted Daisy and Maeve Livingstone to be my friends. I came to quite admire Rosie and her mother, Mrs. Higgler and Mrs. Dunwiddy were the epitome of awesome, and the villains of the piece were properly frightening and/or loathsome. And of course, there was Anansi, who charmed me into liking him even though I rather disapproved of his antics, which is perfect because that's what he does and who he is.
Buy it. Read it. Now. No, seriously.
This was the book I was looking for when I originally went in search of something to read after finishing and adoring Neverwhere. Unfortunately, this book had not been published at that time, so I bought American Gods, which I started and then put away for later because it had the same gravity and grit but none of the humor and whimsy. Next I tried Stardust, which I read all the way through, and liked for its own sake, but which I could never quite take as seriously as I had done Neverwhere. Anansi Boys has the grit, the believable peril, the sense that a happy ending isn't necessarily inevitable that Stardust didn't have. It also has the light-hearted voice and the eccentric flights of fancy that were absent in American Gods (or at least the first five chapters of it). It's not at all a sequel to Neverwhere, but it delivered the same combination of delighted laughter and wide-eyed nail-biting that made Neverwhere a perennial favorite of mine.
Bill actually read this before I did, which is unusual since he usually sticks to thrillers and sci-fi in his own reading and leaves the fantasy for when I read aloud to him. As I read Anansi Boys, I found myself very disappointed that I wouldn't get a chance to read it to my husband. So many distinctive voices, so many delicious turns of phrase...this would have been such a pleasure to read aloud, though I'm not sure I could have done justice to the West Indian dialect.
As with Neverwhere (I'm sorry, I don't mean to keep comparing them, I just can't stop because I love them both so much and for the same reasons), this book boasts a cast of characters that are a pleasure to read and easy to care about. I sympathized with Charlie (who needs a hug), was deeply amused by Spider, wanted Daisy and Maeve Livingstone to be my friends. I came to quite admire Rosie and her mother, Mrs. Higgler and Mrs. Dunwiddy were the epitome of awesome, and the villains of the piece were properly frightening and/or loathsome. And of course, there was Anansi, who charmed me into liking him even though I rather disapproved of his antics, which is perfect because that's what he does and who he is.