The Biblio Files

 A few months ago I read Neil Gaiman's 

The Graveyard Book

 It's about a boy named Nobody who is raised by the ghosts in a graveyard after his family is murdered. 

 I loved reading it, loved the quirky characters and the pure imagination required to invent such a story. It reminded me of a camping trip my family and I took to Michigan, where I wandered down the coast of the lake and found a very old cemetery.  I spent most of the remaining trip hanging out in that old graveyard, reading the inscriptions on the stones and recording them into my journal.

  For some reason (and for lack of research) I assumed that Neil Gaiman was a children's author.  The Graveyard Book is, technically, a children's fantasy. However, on a trip to the bookstore last week I spotted an entire shelf devoted to this talented author.

I decided on American Gods

 "...there are new gods growing in America, clinging to growing knots of belief: gods of credit card and freeway, of Internet and telephone, or radio and hospital and television, gods of plastic and of beeper and of neon. Proud gods, fat and foolish creatures, puffed up with their own newness and importance." 

I struggled upon an adequate word to describe this book and have settled on powerful. 

This book is powerful.  It describes the battle between the forgotten gods (Anubis, Odin, Jesus) of old and the rising gods (technology, media...).  Gaiman touches on concepts of faith, sacrifice and the selfish, fickle nature of men.  It is, in my opinion, a masterpiece.

"And he guessed he would take a roadside attraction, no matter how cheap, how crooked, or how sad, over a shopping mall, any day."