1001 Books Challenge - UPDATE 40
You thought I'd given up, hadn't you? Actually I've just been horribly busy...and to make matters worse the book today isn't even on the 1001 list. It's on my own t0 read list.
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
I've read Neil Gaiman before, obviously. As a Terry Pratchett fan I couldn't have missed Good Omens and I read Stardust after seeing (and loving) the film. That said I was a little wary - style wise I found he occasionally turned a bit dreamy and he lacked the sharp bite that I associate with - say - Pratchett.
As I began to read this I was a little worried. The opening is a little slow going and Richard is a rather lack-lustre character for most of the novel...(he perks up, so to speak, from the point where he and door get drunk, before that he is - understandably I suppose - rather mopey that his whole life has been wiped from existance).
The plot...it's pretty easy. Richard Mayhew, Scottish Office Worker, London resident, engaged to the world's bossiest woman, stumbles accross a wounded girl on the street and - at the cost of his engagement - takes her home to help her. Said girl turns out to be the Lady Door, a noble from London Below desperate to avenge her murdered family while still on the run from the murderers herself. Richard gets mixed up in her life for a while, but after she leaves he expects things to go back to normal. Only when he wakes up he finds out that none of his friends remember him, his flat is being let out, and taxis won't even stop in the street for him. So he sets off into London Below to find the Lady Door and get his life back...
I won't spoil any more in terms of plot, but I will say that some of the concepts are fabulous. The moment that won me over was the Floating Market - a moving market in which the people of London Below do their bartering. Richard finds the first one in Harrods. The imagery of a whole magical market setting itself up inside Harrods while no one in London Above knows is spectacular. From there on in there are twists to familiar London terms. There's an Islington Angel, Black Friars in Blackfriars, and there is a real Earl's Court - literally a noble court with a jester and everything - in a tube car.
These set peices for me made the novel far more than the plot itself. The plot was fine, of course, but I grew irritated with the two bad guys - they were old tropes. You could have swapped the names halfway for the duo from Pratchett's The Truth (Mr. Pin and Mr. "-ing" Tulip) and no one would have been any the wiser (incidentally, the New Firm comment in the Truth was a shoutout to these two, but neither are based on the other). The other characters were far more compelling - The Angel, The Bird Man (very Dickensian), the Marquis de Cabaras, Hunter, Serpentine, and poor Anasthesia were all brilliant.
So yes, by the end of the novel I was completely engrossed. I got upset and the various bits I was meant to be upset by, I was worried during the last chapter, and at the end I was both pleased and yet slightly worried...
So if you haven't read it...definately try it.
And above all...mind the gap.
1001 Novels You Must Read Before You Die
Starting Point: 29
Current Point: 53
Realistic Goal: 300 (I should finish, reading one a week, in about 5 years!)
Adams, Douglas: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Adams, Douglas: Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy
Alcott, Louisa May: Little Women
Atwood, Margaret: The Handmaid's Tale
Austen, Jane: Emma
Austen, Jane: Mansfield Park
Austen, Jane: Northanger Abbey
Austen, Jane: Pride and Prejudice
Austen, Jane: Sense and Sensibility
Bronte, Anne: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Bronte, Charlotte: Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily: Wuthering Heights
Carroll, Lewis: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Christie, Agatha: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Cunningham, Michael: The Hours
Dickens, Charles: Bleak House
Dickens, Charles: Great Expectations
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan: The Hound of the Baskervilles
du Maurier, Daphne: Rebecca
Dumas, Alexander: The Count of Monte-Cristo
Eugenides, Jeffrey: The Virgin Suicides
Forster, E. M: A Room With a View
Forster, E. M: Howard's End
Gaskell, Elizabeth: Cranford
Gaskell, Elizabeth: North and South
Grossmith, George: Diary of a Nobody
Haddon, Mark: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Haggard, H. Rider: King Solomon's Mines
Hugo, Victor: Les Miserables
Ishiguro, Kazuo: The Remains of the Day
Kafka, Franz: The Metamorphosis
Lawrence, D. H: Lady Chatterly's Lover
Lee, Harper: The Kill a Mocking Bird
Levy, Andrea: Small Island
Lindegren, Astrid: Pippi Longstocking
London, Jack: The Call of the Wild
Martel, Yann: Life of Pi
Nabokov, Vladimir: Lolita
Orwell, George: Animal Farm
Poe, Edgar Allen: The Fall of the House of Usher
Poe, Edgar Allen: The Pit and the Pendulum
Queneau, Raymond: Exercises in Style
Schlink, Bernhard: The Reader
Shelley, Mary Woolstonecraft: Frankenstein
Stevenson, Robert Louis: The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde
Stoker, Bram: Dracula
Verne, Jules: Around the World in 80 Days
Walker, Alice: The Color Purple
Walpole, Horace: The Castle of Otranto
Wharton, Edith: The House of Mirth
Wilde, Oscar: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Wodehouse, P. G: Thank You Jeeves
1001 Novels You Must Read Before You Grow Up (and yes, there are crossovers between the lists.)
Starting Point: 61
Current Point: 68
(For reference I'm only going to read books from ages 8+, anything below that age range was already read before starting this)
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher
The Story of the Root Children
The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck
The Cat in the Hat
Green Eggs and Ham
Father Christmas
Burglar Bill
The Snowman
Can't you Sleep, Little Bear?
A Visit From St. Nicholas
Grimms' Fairy Tales
The Emperor's New Clothes
The Ugly Duckling
The House that Jack Built
Milly-Molly-Mandy Stories
Pippi Longstocking
The Worst Witch
Matilda
Tales from Shakespeare
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
A Christmas Carol
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
A Little Princess
The Secret Garden
Mary Poppins
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
Hurrah for St. Trinian's
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
James and the Giant Peach
Stig of the Dump
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Magic Finger
The Carpet People
The Indian in the Cupboard
Goodnight Mister Tom
The BFG
The Demon Headmaster
The Sheep-Pig
The Snow Spider
Bill's New Frock
Truckers
Only You Can Save Mankind
Johnny and the Bomb
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Skellig
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Artemis Fowl
The Graveyard Book
Gulliver's Travels
Little Women
To Kill A Mockingbird
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole
Madame Doubtfire
Flour Babies
Witch Child
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Young Visiters
Around the World in 80 Days
War Horse
Peter Pan
The Call of the Wild
Tom's Midnight Garden
-------
My Private To-Read List
Books Read: 11
Further Reading
Forster, E. M: Maurice
Ishiguro, Kazuo: Never Let Me Go
Classics
Irving, Washington: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
James, Henry: The Turn of the Screw
Recommended
Gaiman, Neil: Neverwhere (read previous books)
Jones, Lloyd: Mister Pip (celebrity recommendation)
Larsson, Stieg: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (booksyoushouldread recommendation)
I Liked the Look of Them
Grogan, John: Marley & Me
Salamon, Julie: The Christmas Tree
Shriver, Lionel: We Need to Talk About Kevin
Trashy But Fun
Orlov, Aleksandr: A Simples Life
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
I've read Neil Gaiman before, obviously. As a Terry Pratchett fan I couldn't have missed Good Omens and I read Stardust after seeing (and loving) the film. That said I was a little wary - style wise I found he occasionally turned a bit dreamy and he lacked the sharp bite that I associate with - say - Pratchett.
As I began to read this I was a little worried. The opening is a little slow going and Richard is a rather lack-lustre character for most of the novel...(he perks up, so to speak, from the point where he and door get drunk, before that he is - understandably I suppose - rather mopey that his whole life has been wiped from existance).
The plot...it's pretty easy. Richard Mayhew, Scottish Office Worker, London resident, engaged to the world's bossiest woman, stumbles accross a wounded girl on the street and - at the cost of his engagement - takes her home to help her. Said girl turns out to be the Lady Door, a noble from London Below desperate to avenge her murdered family while still on the run from the murderers herself. Richard gets mixed up in her life for a while, but after she leaves he expects things to go back to normal. Only when he wakes up he finds out that none of his friends remember him, his flat is being let out, and taxis won't even stop in the street for him. So he sets off into London Below to find the Lady Door and get his life back...
I won't spoil any more in terms of plot, but I will say that some of the concepts are fabulous. The moment that won me over was the Floating Market - a moving market in which the people of London Below do their bartering. Richard finds the first one in Harrods. The imagery of a whole magical market setting itself up inside Harrods while no one in London Above knows is spectacular. From there on in there are twists to familiar London terms. There's an Islington Angel, Black Friars in Blackfriars, and there is a real Earl's Court - literally a noble court with a jester and everything - in a tube car.
These set peices for me made the novel far more than the plot itself. The plot was fine, of course, but I grew irritated with the two bad guys - they were old tropes. You could have swapped the names halfway for the duo from Pratchett's The Truth (Mr. Pin and Mr. "-ing" Tulip) and no one would have been any the wiser (incidentally, the New Firm comment in the Truth was a shoutout to these two, but neither are based on the other). The other characters were far more compelling - The Angel, The Bird Man (very Dickensian), the Marquis de Cabaras, Hunter, Serpentine, and poor Anasthesia were all brilliant.
So yes, by the end of the novel I was completely engrossed. I got upset and the various bits I was meant to be upset by, I was worried during the last chapter, and at the end I was both pleased and yet slightly worried...
So if you haven't read it...definately try it.
And above all...mind the gap.
1001 Novels You Must Read Before You Die
Starting Point: 29
Current Point: 53
Realistic Goal: 300 (I should finish, reading one a week, in about 5 years!)
Adams, Douglas: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Adams, Douglas: Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy
Alcott, Louisa May: Little Women
Atwood, Margaret: The Handmaid's Tale
Austen, Jane: Emma
Austen, Jane: Mansfield Park
Austen, Jane: Northanger Abbey
Austen, Jane: Pride and Prejudice
Austen, Jane: Sense and Sensibility
Bronte, Anne: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Bronte, Charlotte: Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily: Wuthering Heights
Carroll, Lewis: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Christie, Agatha: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Cunningham, Michael: The Hours
Dickens, Charles: Bleak House
Dickens, Charles: Great Expectations
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan: The Hound of the Baskervilles
du Maurier, Daphne: Rebecca
Dumas, Alexander: The Count of Monte-Cristo
Eugenides, Jeffrey: The Virgin Suicides
Forster, E. M: A Room With a View
Forster, E. M: Howard's End
Gaskell, Elizabeth: Cranford
Gaskell, Elizabeth: North and South
Grossmith, George: Diary of a Nobody
Haddon, Mark: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Haggard, H. Rider: King Solomon's Mines
Hugo, Victor: Les Miserables
Ishiguro, Kazuo: The Remains of the Day
Kafka, Franz: The Metamorphosis
Lawrence, D. H: Lady Chatterly's Lover
Lee, Harper: The Kill a Mocking Bird
Levy, Andrea: Small Island
Lindegren, Astrid: Pippi Longstocking
London, Jack: The Call of the Wild
Martel, Yann: Life of Pi
Nabokov, Vladimir: Lolita
Orwell, George: Animal Farm
Poe, Edgar Allen: The Fall of the House of Usher
Poe, Edgar Allen: The Pit and the Pendulum
Queneau, Raymond: Exercises in Style
Schlink, Bernhard: The Reader
Shelley, Mary Woolstonecraft: Frankenstein
Stevenson, Robert Louis: The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde
Stoker, Bram: Dracula
Verne, Jules: Around the World in 80 Days
Walker, Alice: The Color Purple
Walpole, Horace: The Castle of Otranto
Wharton, Edith: The House of Mirth
Wilde, Oscar: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Wodehouse, P. G: Thank You Jeeves
1001 Novels You Must Read Before You Grow Up (and yes, there are crossovers between the lists.)
Starting Point: 61
Current Point: 68
(For reference I'm only going to read books from ages 8+, anything below that age range was already read before starting this)
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher
The Story of the Root Children
The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck
The Cat in the Hat
Green Eggs and Ham
Father Christmas
Burglar Bill
The Snowman
Can't you Sleep, Little Bear?
A Visit From St. Nicholas
Grimms' Fairy Tales
The Emperor's New Clothes
The Ugly Duckling
The House that Jack Built
Milly-Molly-Mandy Stories
Pippi Longstocking
The Worst Witch
Matilda
Tales from Shakespeare
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
A Christmas Carol
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
A Little Princess
The Secret Garden
Mary Poppins
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
Hurrah for St. Trinian's
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
James and the Giant Peach
Stig of the Dump
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Magic Finger
The Carpet People
The Indian in the Cupboard
Goodnight Mister Tom
The BFG
The Demon Headmaster
The Sheep-Pig
The Snow Spider
Bill's New Frock
Truckers
Only You Can Save Mankind
Johnny and the Bomb
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Skellig
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Artemis Fowl
The Graveyard Book
Gulliver's Travels
Little Women
To Kill A Mockingbird
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole
Madame Doubtfire
Flour Babies
Witch Child
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Young Visiters
Around the World in 80 Days
War Horse
Peter Pan
The Call of the Wild
Tom's Midnight Garden
-------
My Private To-Read List
Books Read: 11
Further Reading
Forster, E. M: Maurice
Ishiguro, Kazuo: Never Let Me Go
Classics
Irving, Washington: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
James, Henry: The Turn of the Screw
Recommended
Gaiman, Neil: Neverwhere (read previous books)
Jones, Lloyd: Mister Pip (celebrity recommendation)
Larsson, Stieg: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (booksyoushouldread recommendation)
I Liked the Look of Them
Grogan, John: Marley & Me
Salamon, Julie: The Christmas Tree
Shriver, Lionel: We Need to Talk About Kevin
Trashy But Fun
Orlov, Aleksandr: A Simples Life