{"id":1200,"date":"2019-06-20T06:40:02","date_gmt":"2019-06-20T06:40:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dajuroka.com\/blog\/?page_id=1200"},"modified":"2019-06-20T06:40:05","modified_gmt":"2019-06-20T06:40:05","slug":"american-gods","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.dajuroka.com\/blog\/?page_id=1200","title":{"rendered":"American Gods"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/images.gr-assets.com\/books\/1328342352l\/11823620.jpg?w=474&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Bearers of the Black Staff\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>From Goodreads &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>First published in 2001, American Gods became an instant classic\u2014an intellectual and artistic benchmark from the multiple-award-winning master of innovative fiction, Neil Gaiman. Now discover the mystery and magic of American Gods in this tenth-anniversary edition. Newly updated and expanded with the author\u2019s preferred text, this commemorative volume is a true celebration of a modern masterpiece by the one, the only, Neil Gaiman.<\/p>\n<p>A storm is coming&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Locked behind bars for three years, Shadow did his time, quietly waiting for the magic day when he could return to Eagle Point, Indiana. A man no longer scared of what tomorrow might bring, all he wanted was to be with Laura, the wife he deeply loved, and start a new life.<\/p>\n<p>But just days before his release, Laura and Shadow\u2019s best friend are killed in an accident. With his life in pieces and nothing to keep him tethered, Shadow accepts a job from a beguiling stranger he meets on the way home, an enigmatic man who calls himself Mr. Wednesday. A trickster and rogue, Wednesday seems to know more about Shadow than Shadow does himself.<\/p>\n<p>Life as Wednesday\u2019s bodyguard, driver, and errand boy is far more interesting and dangerous than Shadow ever imagined\u2014it is a job that takes him on a dark and strange road trip and introduces him to a host of eccentric characters whose fates are mysteriously intertwined with his own. Along the way Shadow will learn that the past never dies; that everyone, including his beloved Laura, harbors secrets; and that dreams, totems, legends, and myths are more real than we know. Ultimately, he will discover that beneath the placid surface of everyday life a storm is brewing\u2014an epic war for the very soul of America\u2014and that he is standing squarely in its path.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dajuroka rating 9.5<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>American Gods is a Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novel by Neil Gaiman.<\/p>\n<p>The book won the 2002 Hugo, Nebula, Locus,[1] SFX Magazine and Bram Stoker Awards, all for Best Novel, and likewise received nominations for the 2001 BSFA Award, as well as the 2002 World Fantasy, International Horror Guild and Mythopoeic, and British Fantasy awards. It won the 2003 Geffen Award.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"American Gods on Wiki\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/American_Gods\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Read <\/a> some detailed spoilers on Wiki if you must. You should just read and see where it takes you. Initially off putting you eventually come to grasp the brilliance in the analogies and rich use of myth and history.<\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"width: 120px; height: 240px;\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;OneJS=1&amp;Operation=GetAdHtml&amp;MarketPlace=US&amp;source=ac&amp;ref=tf_til&amp;ad_type=product_link&amp;tracking_id=dajurokacom-20&amp;marketplace=amazon&amp;region=US&amp;placement=0307887448&amp;asins=0062472100&amp;linkId=922c918c33bc90828b56709d917a3c99&amp;show_border=true&amp;link_opens_in_new_window=true&amp;price_color=333333&amp;title_color=0066C0&amp;bg_color=FFFFFF\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition (Enhanced Edition) by Neil Gaiman<\/p>\n<p>Some of my loved quotes from this brilliant author &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou never learn how to write a novel,\u201d he told me. \u201cYou only learn to write the novel you\u2019re on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Information and knowledge: these are currencies that have never gone out of style.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor the joy\u2019s gone out of me now, like the pee from a small boy in a swimming pool on a hot day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Every hour wounds. The last one kills.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow\u2019d you lose your eye?\u201d Wednesday shoveled half a dozen pieces of bacon into his mouth, chewed, wiped the fat from his lips with the back of his hand. \u201cDidn\u2019t lose it,\u201d he said. \u201cI still know exactly where it is.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Okay: how can we be sure the CIA wasn\u2019t involved in the Kennedy assassination?\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d said Stone. \u201cHow can we be sure?\u201d \u201cHe\u2019s dead, isn\u2019t he?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We were so poor that we couldn\u2019t afford a fire. Come New Year\u2019s Eve my father would suck on a peppermint, and us kids, we\u2019d stand around with our hands outstretched, basking in the glow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.&#8221; \u2014BEN FRANKLIN, POOR RICHARD\u2019S ALMANACK<\/p>\n<p>Tonight, as you eat, reflect if you can: there are children starving in the world, starving in numbers larger than the mind can easily hold, up in the big numbers where an error of a million here, a million there, can be forgiven. It may be uncomfortable for you to reflect upon this or it may not, but still, you will eat.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;No man, proclaimed Donne, is an Island, and he was wrong. If we were not islands, we would be lost, drowned in each others\u2019 tragedies.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We need individual stories. Without individuals we see only numbers: a thousand dead, a hundred thousand dead, \u201ccasualties may rise to a million.\u201d With individual stories, the statistics become people\u2014but even that is a lie, for the people continue to suffer in numbers that themselves are numbing and meaningless. Look, see the child\u2019s swollen, swollen belly, and the flies that crawl at the corners of his eyes, his skeletal limbs: will it make it easier for you to know his name, his age, his dreams, his fears? To see him from the inside? And if it does, are we not doing a disservice to his sister, who lies in the searing dust beside him, a distorted, distended caricature of a human child? And there, if we feel for them, are they now more important to us than a thousand other children touched by the same famine, a thousand other young lives who will soon be food for the flies\u2019 own myriad squirming children?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He said, \u201cRead me anything interesting you find in the paper.\u201d Shadow looked carefully, and he turned the pages slowly, but he couldn\u2019t find anything.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou are an analog girl, living in a digital world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Life is a cabernet&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Organizing gods is like herding cats into straight lines.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That there\u2019s a cat in a box somewhere who\u2019s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don\u2019t ever open the box to feed it, it\u2019ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead)&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Canada Bill sighed, and shrugged his shoulders, and said, \u2018I know. But it\u2019s the only game in town.\u2019<br \/>&#8220;I know it\u2019s crooked. But it\u2019s the only game in town.&#8221; \u2014 Canada Bill Jones<\/p>\n<p>Some interesting areas from the book &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>One question that has always intrigued me is what happens to demonic beings when immigrants move from their homelands. Irish-Americans remember the fairies, Norwegian-Americans the nisser, Greek-Americans the vryk\u00f3lakas, but only in relation to events remembered in the Old Country. When I once asked why such demons are not seen in America, my informants giggled confusedly and said \u201cThey\u2019re scared to pass the ocean, it\u2019s too far,\u201d pointing out that Christ and the apostles never came to America. \u2014 Richard Dorson, \u201cA Theory for American Folklore,\u201d American Folklore and the Historian (University of Chicago Press, 1971<\/p>\n<p>The boundaries of our country, sir? Why sir, onto the north we are bounded by the Aurora Borealis, on the east we are bounded by the rising sun, on the south we are bounded by the procession of the Equinoxes, and on the west by the Day of Judgement. \u2014THE AMERICAN JOE MILLER\u2019S JEST BOOK<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis paper,\u201d said Natalie, \u201chas another one of those articles in it. \u2018Is America Changing?\u2019\u201d \u201cWell, is it?\u201d \u201cThey don\u2019t say. They say that maybe it is, but they don\u2019t know how and they don\u2019t know why, and maybe it isn\u2019t happening at all.\u201d Sam smiled broadly. \u201cWell,\u201d she said, \u201cthat covers every option, doesn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Goodreads &#8211; First published in 2001, American Gods became an instant classic\u2014an intellectual and artistic benchmark from the multiple-award-winning master of innovative fiction, Neil Gaiman. Now discover the mystery and magic of American Gods in this tenth-anniversary edition. Newly updated and expanded with the author\u2019s preferred text, this commemorative volume is a true celebration &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dajuroka.com\/blog\/?page_id=1200\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">American Gods<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":256,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"amazonpipp_noncename":"","amazon-product-isactive":"","amazon-product-single-asin":"","amazon-product-content-location":"1","amazon-product-content-hook-override":"3","amazon-product-excerpt-hook-override":"3","amazon-product-singular-only":"","amazon-product-amazon-desc":"","amazon-product-show-gallery":"","amazon-product-show-features":"","amazon-product-newwindow":"3","amazon-product-show-list-price":"","amazon-product-show-used-price":"","amazon-product-show-saved-amt":"","amazon-product-timestamp":"","amazon-product-new-title":"","amazon-product-use-cartURL":"","amazon_featured_post_meta_key":"","_amazon_featured_alt":"","amazon-product-template":"","spay_email":""},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/PaoL7Z-jm","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":916,"url":"http:\/\/www.dajuroka.com\/blog\/?page_id=916","url_meta":{"origin":1200,"position":0},"title":"Neil Gaiman","date":"June 18, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Bibliography: Novels American Gods The Ocean at the End of the Lane Neil Gaiman's Website Fascinating - spend some hours here with one of our great modern authors.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":918,"url":"http:\/\/www.dajuroka.com\/blog\/?page_id=918","url_meta":{"origin":1200,"position":1},"title":"Quotes from &#8220;American Gods&#8221; by Neil Gaiman","date":"June 18, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"American Gods by Neil Gaiman My rating: 4 of 5 stars A wonderful saga, well researched and in places memorable. I found so many parts of this work that I wanted to remember - enjoy some quotable quotes! \u201cYou never learn how to write a novel,\u201d he told me. \u201cYou\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":256,"url":"http:\/\/www.dajuroka.com\/blog\/?page_id=256","url_meta":{"origin":1200,"position":2},"title":"Fiction A.","date":"October 30, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"A Long Way From Home by Peter Carey A Summer At Sea by Katie Fforde A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki A Quantum Murder by Peter F. Hamilton Alex Cross, Run by James Patterson American Gods by Neil Gaiman Anathem by Neal Stephenson","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1557,"url":"http:\/\/www.dajuroka.com\/blog\/?page_id=1557","url_meta":{"origin":1200,"position":3},"title":"The Ocean at the End of the Lane","date":"June 21, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"From Goodreads 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,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":898,"url":"http:\/\/www.dajuroka.com\/blog\/?page_id=898","url_meta":{"origin":1200,"position":4},"title":"Authors G.","date":"June 18, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Authors in Literature Gaiman, Neil Garth, Jessie George, Nina Gilbert, Elizabeth Greene, Graham Grenville, Bruce Gross, Andrew Grossman, Lev","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":172,"url":"http:\/\/www.dajuroka.com\/blog\/?page_id=172","url_meta":{"origin":1200,"position":5},"title":"Fiction T.","date":"October 29, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler The Atlantis Gene by A.G.Riddle The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler The Burning Room by Michael Connelly The Childhood of Jesus by John Maxwell Coetzee The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by Pat Richards The Dragon\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dajuroka.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1200"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dajuroka.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dajuroka.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dajuroka.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dajuroka.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1200"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.dajuroka.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1201,"href":"http:\/\/www.dajuroka.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1200\/revisions\/1201"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dajuroka.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dajuroka.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}