American Gods
Neil Gaiman, 2001
Fantasy Religion & spiritualityScience fictionGraphic novels & humour
A newly released convict takes a job with a mysterious conman and discovers that old gods, brought to America by immigrants, are preparing for war with the new. A restless road trip through diners and motels, eerie and witty, with mythic weight pressing under the ordinary.
Feels like unease and wonder. About faith and memory.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy myth-soaked fantasy with a conman's wit and a road-trip frame. The story sprawls through many detours and side characters, so it can ask for patience when you want a tighter plot.
Why read it
It gives you a strange, witty view of belief and memory in America, with the road trip keeping the mythic scale personal.
A page from the book
What if the real reason people gamble is to lose?
There is a secret that the casinos possess, a secret they hold and guard and prize, the holiest of their mysteries. For most people do not gamble to win money, after all, although that is what is advertised, sold, claimed, and dreamed. But that is merely the easy lie that gets them through the enormous, ever-open, welcoming doors.The secret is this: people gamble to lose money. They come to the casinos for the moment in which they feel alive, to ride the spinning wheel and turn with the cards and lose themselves, with the coins, in the slots. They may brag about the nights they won, the money they took from the casino, but they treasure, secretly treasure, the times they lost. It’s a sacrifice, of sorts. Neil Gaiman.American Gods won the 2002 Hugo and Nebula for Best Novel and the 2001 Bram Stoker Award; it was first published in 2001.
Books that feel like this
More by Neil Gaiman
Coraline
Neil Gaiman, 2002
A girl discovers a door to a parallel home with a button-eyed mother who wants to keep her. A dark fairy tale about courage and wanting.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Neil Gaiman, 2013
A man drives back to the pond at the end of his childhood lane, and remembers the year the ordinary world let something else through.
Norse Mythology
Neil Gaiman, 2017
Neil Gaiman retells the Norse myths as a linked cycle: petty, powerful gods, a clever Loki, and a world that knows it is ending.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is American Gods for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy myth-soaked fantasy with a conman's wit and a road-trip frame. The story sprawls through many detours and side characters, so it can ask for patience when you want a tighter plot.
- What is American Gods like?
- A restless road trip through diners and motels, eerie and witty, with mythic weight pressing under the ordinary. Feels like unease and wonder. About faith and memory.
- What should I read after American Gods?
- If you liked American Gods, try The Last Battle (C.S. Lewis), Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson) and Fairy Tale (Stephen King).
A taste of the feed
A joy so large it feels like being wounded.
I have been wandering to find him and my happiness is so great that it even weakens me like a wound. And this is the marvel of marvels, that he called me Beloved, me who am but as a dog.
The Last Battle · C.S. Lewis
The world-ending thing you’ve stopped noticing.
You get used to the amazing, that’s all. Mermaids and IMAX, giants and cell phones. If it’s in your world, you go with it. It’s wonderful, right? Only look at it another way, and it’s sort of awful. Think Gogmagog is scary? Our world is sitting on a potentially world-ending supply of nuclear weapons, and if that’s not black magic, I don’t know what is.
Fairy Tale · Stephen King
A god who has everything answers to no one, especially not decorum.
She’s only seventeen years old,” Llarimar said. “I can’t imagine being married to the God King at her age.” “I can’t imagine you being married to the God King at any age, Scoot,” Lightsong said. Then he pointedly cringed. “Actually, yes I can imagine it, and the dress looks painfully inelegant on you. Make a note to have my imagination flogged for its insolence in showing me that par tic u lar sight.” “I’ll put it in line right behind your sense of decorum, Your Grace,” Llarimar said dryly. “Don’t be silly,” Lightsong said, taking a sip of wine. “I haven’t had one of those in years.
Warbreaker · Brandon Sanderson
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