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American Gods by Neil Gaiman is pretty good as well .. very good infact ..

Oddly enough I also quit reading American Gods (rare for a Gaiman book), but I don't remember it being difficult. I just kind of lost interest.

I'm not sure if it's original, but the book American Gods had a good joke about this.

"How do you know the CIA didn't kill JFK?"

I just finished American Gods by Gaiman. A pretty good book.

Not seen the Sandman comic before though - looks interesting.

American Gods is awesome. One of Neil Gaiman's best works, along with the Sandman series.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman is an amazing book.

The tenth anniversary edition of American Gods is read by a great cast, and is more like a play than an audio book. Each character is read well. Really sucked me in.

American Gods and A Game of Thrones were some of the most abandoned books in 2019 as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21957798

Yep, if anything “LOW KEY” is probably a reference to Neil Gaiman's American Gods novel. https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Loki_(American_Gods)

That’s the thing about stuff in the public domain it shows up everywhere with multiple people independently making the same jokes.

Ready player one - Good bit of fun for a gamer/80s enthusist

Dark Tower 1: The Gunslinger - I had no idea what was going on, i just know i enjoyed it

American Gods - slow starting but great book

Leviathan wakes - book that the netflix series 'the expanse' is based on

A Song of ice and fire books 1 to 3

On a "what makes us tick" non-fiction bent:

1. Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (http://tinyurl.com/33kv6te) - fascinating look at the author's theory of Flow, the state of total absorption that accompanies total concentration - so called "optimal experience". Anyone who programs knows this feeling. Really excellent book.

2. Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert (http://tinyurl.com/38lvdzc) - not the self-help book it sounds like, but an interesting look at why we're so bad at working out what will make us happy.

3. The Tiger that isn't by Andrew Dilnot (http://tinyurl.com/38hntqx) - interesting guide to our instinctive interpretation of statistics and how the media manipulates it.

4. Bad Science by Ben Goldacre (http://tinyurl.com/3yk8woz) - at once amusing and horrifying look at various aspects of pseudoscience, especially as applied to healthcare.

Fiction:

1. Anything by Iain Banks, especially the sci-fi.

2. If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor (http://tinyurl.com/3496d34) - worth reading just for the language he uses.

3. American Gods by Neil Gaiman (http://tinyurl.com/3xyr65w) - great fantasy with a darkly humorous side.

It's a very different prose style, but it works for the stories he's telling. That he stumbled into that style by trying to pad his length is interesting, but ultimately beside the point: the resulting stories stand or fall on their merits.

(It does raise the question of to what extent good writing relates to the author trying to write well. E.g. I found the "author's preferred text" of American Gods verbose and meandering, and suspect that the original release was superior, even though Gaiman regards it as having been excessively edited for commercial reasons)

It's worth noting that all three of her Broken Earth trilogy won Hugo awards.

It's not uncommon for series to win like that (getting a Hugo award for the first book means people will start the series, and since the awards are popular voting having people read your book is half the struggle).

I think the first two books (The Fifth Season and the Stone Sky) were great, but I didn't love the final book. I think Ann Leckie's Provenance should have won that year - it's in the (Hugo award winning!) Ancillary Justice universe, and deals with lots of issues around AI that I think many at HN would enjoy.

And as for the dead comments complaining that her winning is some kind of conspiracy because it's not hard SF: Fantasy has long won Hugo awards.

Also: (a) go read it - it's got a system of magic that is as hard as any magical faster than light technology in a space opera, and (b) Gaiman won with American Gods and The Graveyard Book. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union won in 2008. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire won.

This is true, but we are much more desensitized against carnage on the roads.

There is a fantastic line in Neil Gaiman's American Gods:

“There were car gods there: a powerful, serious-faced contingent, with blood on their black gloves and on their chrome teeth: recipients of human sacrifice on a scale undreamed-of since the Aztecs.”

I read American Gods for the first time after downloading it, and then I bought it.

Lots of dystopian and alternate world sci-fi (most recently read first):

1) The Handmaid’s Tale

2) Off to be the Wizard

3) The Three-Body Problem

4) Good Omens

5) We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

6) American Gods

7) Ready Player One

I really enjoyed all of these, though the Neil Gaiman books are rather long-winded. Ready Player One in particular is something I’d recommend to any geek or 80s movies and music fan. I found myself watching lots of old movies and listening to old music so I’d understand those references I didn’t know.

I’m now quite eager to not read any more about virtual worlds though.

Graphic Novels / comics:

8) Monstress

9) Rat Queens

10) Saga

Monstress and Saga develop really amazing worlds with engaging stories. Read them both. Rat Queens is just good fun.

Coding:

11) Code

Still working my way through, but it’s pretty cool. It goes from Morse code and electrical circuits to more complex code as conceptual fundamentals.

I’m sure I’ve missed a few, but these are the ones that stand out.

I never expected there would be so few comic readers on HackerNews!

This "LOW KEY" shirt depicted here was worn by the Marvel character Loki in the very recent Marvel comic "Loki (2019) #2". This depiction of him was WILDLY popular, especially the second-printing variant cover by Babbs Tarr: https://twitter.com/babsdraws/status/1166461271396507648 & https://www.midtowncomics.com/product/1883000 which still goes for $20 or $30 on eBay, very uncommon for a modern second printing of anything.

This has nothing to do with the Norse mythology or Neil Gaiman's American Gods novel.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

Not the best book I've ever read. Not even my favorite book I've read. But it's the one I've read the most, and the one I always go back to. It reminds me of my childhood home, my time growing up there, as well as helps diminish my wanderlust when I'm feeling restless.

It also helped me through times of depression and encouraged a love of reading.

I have a similar, possibly identical complaint about American Gods. Reading American Gods made it clear that Neil Gaiman is very clever (intelligent, tricky plotting) and, independently, a great writer (good with words).

But his tastes are different from mine. There are sections of American Gods that are much too vulgar/crass/obscene/whatever for my taste.

This is also why I never read the sequel to Lies of Locke Lamora.

I have to agree with my sibling post. I seek out narrators like Wil Wheaton, Ray Porter and Luke Daniels. I will often look at the other work that a narrator has done in the hopes that it will be worth considering.

There are also excellent cast based readings, like Cory Doctorow's last novel Walkaway (which had among other people Amanda Palmer in it).

There are also some excellent cast based reading Audible. American Gods comes to mind.

My 11 year old son did not want me to get him a story book. Instead he wanted a programming book, so we bought "Hello Python" by Anthony Briggs from a bookstore. The Amazon reviews for it ended up not so good, so we'll see how it goes: http://www.amazon.com/Hello-Python-Anthony-S-Briggs/dp/19351...

Anyway, I've recently read (my Kindle list):

    * Curious Myths of the Middles Ages by S. Baring-Gould
    * American Gods by Neil Gaiman
    * Instrumentalities of the Night series by Glen Cook
    * The Dragon Never Sleeps by Glen Cook
    * Many HP Lovecraft stories which I hadn't already read (I bought HP Lovecraft Complete Fiction)
    * Grimm's Fairy Tales
    * Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome by Apicius
    * Takeshi Kovacs series by Richard K. Morgan
    * A Fire in the Sun (Budayeen series) by George Alec Effinger
    * Wool Omnibus by Hugh Howey
    * Hunted (Iron Druid Chronicles) by Kevin Hearne
    * Catspaw by Joan D. Vinge

Also I've been watching videos more than reading recently:

    * Peaky Blinders
    * Top Gear
    * Skins
    * Grimm (where everyone in Portland lives in restored craftsman style homes and uses devices from Apple)
    * The Grand Budapest Hotel
    * Constantine
    * Moby Dick (Patrick Stewart version)

>it's no different than saying that Lamy make the book American Gods possible

I have to say I think this is a pretty big leap. True, you can't do a controlled experiment with no McDonald's in the market to see what would have happened. But that doesn't mean you immediately throw up your hands and say "no useful or meaningful knowledge to be gained here because we can't do an impossible study." You might not get to 100% certainty but you can definitely figure some stuff out about how things are probably working, and the magnitude of the impact of the McDonald's system.

Diamond Age is one of my favourite books. Alongside Cryptonomicon, American Gods and Rainbows End.

Reamde was a dud for me as well.

Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation (2nd edition) by Hopcroft, Motwani, and Ullman.

Compilers, Principles, Techniques, and Tools, 2nd ed ("The Dragon Book") by Aho, Lam, Sethi, and Ullman.

American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, by Eliezer Yudkowsky

"I also consider a model adjusting for covariates (author/average-rating/year), to see what books are most surprisingly often-abandoned given their pedigrees & rating etc."

Infinite Jest? Surprising? Have you actually tried reading that bloated example of The MFA Guy's Novel?

I also find myself wondering if American Gods would be #3 on the first version of this list if it had been compiled before the TV show version of that book.

I also started Gödel, Escher, Bach. Have yet to finish the preface.

Discover Meteor: a book for the Meteorjs framework. Good book if you want to learn the framework.

I read a lot of fiction I guess.
Now I am reading American Gods, and before that, Dune. Before Dune I read the 2 released books of The Kingkiller Chronicle.

I'm a stickler for slogging through books even when I'm not feeling them- and will go back a second and third time to try and reattempt- but I gave up on American Gods because it was just such a bore and slow burn. I would have rather watched the paint dry or reruns of Friends.

For Game of Thrones I tried the audiobooks but Roy Dotrice was a horrible narrator- too breathy, too phlegmy and every character - even the women- had the same voice. I'd rather have had a straight read with someone not trying to act the characters than someone who did the all poorly. Game of Thrones is one of /r/audible on reddit's most requested to be re-recorded books. Would love to see them unleash an awesome narrator - such as Ray Porter - on them to really make them shine.

Recommendations:

Non Fiction: White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America

https://smile.amazon.com/White-Trash-400-Year-History-Americ...

It sometimes reads like "A People's History of the United States", but the chapter about Andrew Jackson's election would seem like they were forcing the analogies to the 2016 election if not for the fact that it was published beforehand.

Fiction: American Gods
https://smile.amazon.com/American-Gods-Tenth-Anniversary-Nov...

I think lots of people will like this book, but certainly those who are into road trips across America.

A bunch of books: Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey (as well as several of the sequels), American Gods by Neil Gaiman, The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, The Magicians by Lev Grossman, Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling, The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin, and a bunch of others.

My June/July/Aug booklist:

   - How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster
   - The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
   - The Story of the Human Body by Daniel Lieberman 
   - The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
   - Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston
   - Coders at Work by Peter Seibel 
   - Drive  by Daniel Pink
   - American Gods by Neil Gaiman