Waiting On Wednesday: Neil Gaiman!

I am Waiting again on Wednesday! This meme is hosted at Breaking the Spine and is based on a book you can’t wait to read that hasn’t been published yet.

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So my book for this week is: THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE

The blurb: THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE is a fable that reshapes modern fantasy: moving, terrifying and elegiac – as pure as a dream, as delicate as a butterfly’s wing, as dangerous as a knife in the dark, from storytelling genius Neil Gaiman.

It began for our narrator forty years ago when the family lodger stole their car and committed suicide in it, stirring up ancient powers best left undisturbed. Dark creatures from beyond the world are on the loose, and it will take everything our narrator has just to stay alive: there is primal horror here, and menace unleashed – within his family and from the forces that have gathered to destroy it.

His only defense is three women, on a farm at the end of the lane. The youngest of them claims that her duckpond is ocean. The oldest can remember the Big Bang.

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I LOVE NEIL GAIMAN!  The Graveyard Book was a favourite book of the year and no one quite weaves magic into everyday life like Neil Gaiman. All hale the Master has returned, I am literally itching with impatience for this book! If it doesn’t make number 1 I’ll eat my hat!

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Published: 20th June 2013, Headline Review

PRE-ORDER ME! The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Wishlist Monday

This is a brief post on two books that have caught my eye over the weekend. The first is 13 Women of the Otherworld by Kelley Armstrong. I’ve never read anything by Armstrong before but the name is setting off alarm bells ringing in my head. I doubt I can just pick this one up however as it looks like it’s the finale in a series. But it’s beautiful and that has made me want it! The second is the collection Under My Hat by various geniuses including Neil Gaiman and Garth Nix. This is a very iconic image, the bubbling cauldron and makes me want to own it immediately. Two great looking books I will have to make shelf space for!

 

    

Book Review: The Graveyard Book

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

The blurb: When a baby escapes a murderer intent on killing the entire family, who would have thought it would find safety and security in the local graveyard?

Brought up by the resident ghosts, ghouls and spectres, Bod has an eccentric childhood learning about life from the dead. But for Bod there is also the danger of the murderer still looking for him – after all, he is the last remaining member of the family.

A stunningly original novel deftly constructed over eight chapters, featuring every second year of Bod’s life, from babyhood to adolescence. Will Bod survive to be a man?

My review: This book has been on my list of books to read since it came out in hardback – and since the paperback has been around since October that is some time. I don’t know why I kept putting it off, it was an absolute pleasure.

The Graveyard Book has a motley collection of characters, eccentric ghosts, reclusive vampires, deadly assassins and Bod, formely Nobody Owens the only ‘living’ person to reside in a graveyard, having the freedom of the graveyard he gets along just fine and this book is packed full of his adventures.

I loved every page of this book – it reminded me strongly of Steward & Riddell’s The Edge Chronicles but that may be because the illustrious illustrator has put his mark on this book too (and both have impulsive, young hero’s). Hugely inventive, Gaiman’s imagination has no bounds and takes the reader to the depths of possibility and beyond. A must read for anyone who loves fairytales, the peculiar or just a really gripping story.

Buy it now and read it immediately!

8.5 stars out of 10! ********.5

BUY ME! The Graveyard Book

Oooo The Graveyard Book on YouTube!!

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

A book trailer – how exciting!! Is this a new phenomenon? More I say!