Likely Stories

Book #282 (Unique books)

Book #2 in 2021

Likely Stories

by Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham

"These dark and imaginative tales feature an odd and subtly linked world of bizarre venereal diseases, a creepy old woman who feasts on raw meat, a man obsessed with a skin model from a magazine, and a story within a story about ghosts.

You wont want to miss this collection featuring comic adaptations of the short stories: Looking for the Girl, Foreign Parts, Closing Time, and Feeders and Eaters from the Hugo, Eisner, Newbery, Harvey, Bram Stoker, Locus, World Fantasy, and Nebula award-winning author Neil Gaiman!"

January 14th 2021 (evening) to January 17th - 3ish days - 80 pages

Odd and the Frost Giants (re-read) (audiobook)

Book #24 in 2014

Odd and the Frost Giants

by Neil Gaiman

"After the death of his father, Odd's life has been stuck in a downward spiral. However, his luck begins to change after he frees a trapped bear in the woods. Discovering that the bear is actually a Norse god, twelve-year-old Odd embarks on a perilous quest to save the other gods from evil frost giants."

August 11th - a few hours - audiobook

Notes:

Listened to on Boltbus on the way up to Chloe's.

I just looked at the first time I read this and apparently I read it on August 11th 3 years earlier??

Fortunately, the Milk...

Book #220 (Unique books)
Book #33 in 2013

 Fortunately, the Milk...

by Neil Gaiman

 "You know what it’s like when your mum goes away on a business trip and Dad’s in charge. She leaves a really, really long list of what he’s got to do. And the most important thing is DON’T FORGET TO GET THE MILK. Unfortunately, Dad forgets. So the next morning, before breakfast, he has to go to the corner shop, and this is the story of why it takes him a very, very long time to get back.

Featuring: Professor Steg (a time-travelling dinosaur), some green globby things, the Queen of the Pirates, the famed jewel that is the Eye of Splod, some wumpires, and a perfectly normal but very important carton of milk."

September 16th - 1 sitting - 142 pages 

Notes:

Bought in Dublin! probably right after it was published.

Read while sitting in Cup. ♥

The Absolute Sandman, Volume One

Book #219 (Unique books)
Book #32 in 2013

 The Absolute Sandman, Volume One

written by Neil Gaiman

 "The Absolute Sandman Volume One reprints issues 1-20 of THE SANDMAN, and features all-new coloring on issues 1-18 commissioned especially for this edition. This volme also includes a full reproduction of Gaiman's original proposal for the series and the complete script and pencis by Gaiman and Charles Vess for the World Fantasy Award-winning story "A Midsummer Night's Dream" from THE SANDMAN #19, as well as afterwords by Gaiman and a gallery of character design sketches showing the evolution of Dream of the Endless."

 July 29th to September 7th - almost 6 weeks - 612 pages

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Book #210 (Unique books)
Book #22 in 2013

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

by Neil Gaiman

"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."

July 1st to 2nd - 2 days - 181 pages

Notes:

Neil Gaiman is wonderful, and I enjoyed this book. I got it just in time to go see him in Santa Rosa on his signing tour on Saturday.

 My favorite part is that the picture of him as a child on a drainpipe is on the back cover of the book.

Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions

Book #197 (Unique books)
Book #6 in 2013

 Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions

by Neil Gaiman

 "In the deft hands of Neil Gaiman, magic is no mere illusion . . . and anything is possible. In Smoke and Mirrors, Gaiman's imagination and supreme artistry transform a mundane world into a place of terrible wonders--where an old woman can purchase the Holy Grail at a thrift store, where assassins advertise their services in the Yellow Pages under "Pest Control," and where a frightened young boy must barter for his life with a mean-spirited troll living beneath a bridge by the railroad tracks. Explore a new reality, obscured by smoke and darkness yet brilliantly tangible, in this extraordinary collection of short works by a master prestidigitator. It will dazzle your senses, touch your heart, and haunt your dreams."

November 25th to February 18th - a lot of days - 339 pages

Notes:

Read mostly as bedtime stories. 

Favorite stories:

The Wedding Present (most favorite)

Chivalry

The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories

Changes

Shoggoth's Old Peculiar (I like this one because I first heard it live at An Evening With Neil Gaiman & Amanda Palmer)

Looking For The Girl

We Can Get Them For You Wholesale

Murder Mysteries

Coraline (re-read) (audiobook)

***Just decided that audiobooks should be recorded and actually should count toward my goals because why shouldn't they be? It's still a book I don't know why I thought I shouldn't count them before, and also this way I am less behind on my 50 book goal.***

***Posting this 12/8/12 but moving it to the spot it should actually be in my list of books.***

Book #41 in 2012

Coraline

by Neil Gaiman

"Coraline's often wondered what's behind the locked door in the drawing room. It reveals only a brick wall when she finally opens it, but when she tries again later, a passageway mysteriously appears. Coraline is surprised to find a flat decorated exactly like her own, but strangely different. And when she finds her "other" parents in this alternate world, they are much more interesting despite their creepy black button eyes. When they make it clear, however, that they want to make her theirs forever, Coraline begins a nightmarish game to rescue her real parents and three children imprisoned in a mirror. With only a bored-through stone and an aloof cat to help, Coraline confronts this harrowing task of escaping these monstrous creatures."

 October 27ish? to November 27ish? - about a month. I didn't keep track.

Notes:

Started by listening to the chapters from here, as I was going to sleep:

http://www.mousecircus.com/coraline-videos.aspx

but then got impatient when it was the end of the book and the last two chapters weren't up so I got the audiobook from the library.

Love this book a lot. Especially when it is being read to me by Neil Gaiman.

M is for Magic

Book #179 (Unique books)
Book #35 in 2012

 M is for Magic

by Neil Gaiman

"Stories to delight, enchant, and surprise you.

Bestselling author and master storyteller Neil Gaiman here presents a breathtaking collection of tales that may chill or amuse readers—but always embrace the unexpected."

October 10th to 14th - 4 1/2 days - 260 pages

Notes:

Favorite stories:

The Case of Four and Twenty Blackbirds

Troll Bridge

Chivalry

Instructions

InterWorld

Book #145 (Unique books)
Book #23 in 2011

InterWorld
by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves

"At nearly fifteen years of age, Joey Harker learns that he is a Walker, able to travel between dimensions, and soon joins a team of different versions of himself, each from another dimension, to fight the evil forces striving to conquer all the worlds."

November 22nd to December 9th - 18 days - 239 pages

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

Book #142 (Unique books)
Book #20 in 2011

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett

"According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (the world's only completely accurate book of prophecies written in 1655, before she exploded), the world will end on Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner. So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, Atlantis is rising, frogs are falling, tempers are flaring. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon--both of whom have lived amongst Earth's mortals since The beginning and have grown rather fond of the lifestyle--are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture. And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist..."

August 12th to October 14th - 60 days (2 months) - 398 pages

Odd and the Frost Giants

Book #140 (Unique books)
Book #18 in 2011

Odd and the Frost Giants
by Neil Gaiman

"Odd’s father perished in a Viking expedition, a tree shattered his leg, and the endless winter is making his neighbors dangerously grumpy. But perhaps Odd’s luck will change when he meets a bear, an eagle, and a fox who are more than what they seem to be."

August 11th - 1 day - 117 pages

Stardust

Book #86 (Unique books)
Book #30 in 2009

Stardust
by Neil Gaiman

"Young Tristran Thorn will do anything to win the cold heart of beautiful Victoria—even fetch her the star they watch fall from the night sky. But to do so, he must enter the unexplored lands on the other side of the ancient wall that gives their tiny village its name. Beyond that old stone wall, Tristran learns, lies Faerie—where nothing, not even a fallen star, is what he imagined."

July 27th to July 28th - 2 days - 235 (8 with acknowledgments) pages

90 books read total (re-reads, audiobooks, etc. (since 2007))

Coraline

Book #84 (Unique books)
Book #27 in 2009

Coraline
by Neil Gaiman

"Looking for excitement, Coraline ventures through a mysterious door into a world that is similar, yet disturbingly different from her own, where she must challenge a gruesome entity in order to save herself, her parents, and the souls of three others."

July 22nd - 1 day, about 6 hours - 162 pages

87 books read total (re-reads, audiobooks, etc. (since 2007))

The Graveyard Book

Book #83 (Unique books)
Book #26 in 2009

The Graveyard Book
by Neil Gaiman

"Bod is an unusual boy who inhabits an unusual place-he's the only living resident of a graveyard. Raised from infancy by the ghosts, werewolves, and other cemetery denizens, Bod has learned the antiquated customs of his guardians' time as well as their timely ghostly teachings-like the ability to Fade. Can a boy raised by ghosts face the wonders and terrors of the worlds of both the living and the dead? And then there are things like ghouls that aren't really one thing or the other."

July 19th to July 21st - 3 days - 312 pages

86 books read total (re-reads, audiobooks, etc. (since 2007))

American Gods

Book #79
Book #21 in 2009

American Gods
by Neil Gaiman

"Shadow is a man with a past. But now he wants nothing more than to live a quiet life with his wife and stay out of trouble. Until he learns that she's been killed in a terrible accident. Flying home for the funeral, as a violent storm rocks the plane, a strange man in the seat next to him introduces himself. The man calls himself Mr. Wednesday, and he knows more about Shadow than is possible. He warns Shadow that a far bigger storm is coming. And from that moment on, nothing will ever he the same..."

June 11th to July 7th (8th technically, 12:30AM) - 27(8) days - 588 pages

Neverwhere

Book #78
Book #20 in 2009

Neverwhere
by Neil Gaiman

"Richard Mayhew is a plain man with a good heart---and an ordinary life that is changed forever on a day he stops to help a girl he finds bleeding on a London sidewalk. From that moment forward he is propelled into a world he never dreamed existed---a dark subculture flourishing in abandoned subway stations and sewer tunnels below the city---a world far stranger and more dangerous than the only one he has ever known..."

June 8th (around 6PM) to June 10th (9PM) - 2 1/2 days - 370 pages

Notes:
This book is fucking amazing.
I fell in love with it by page 40.