Anansi Boys by Neil Gaimen

Fiction: Fantasy. Audiobook from Harper Collins Audio. Published in 2005. 10 hours and 8 minutes. Read by Lenny Henry. Purchased at Audible.com

I finished this audiobook en-route to LAX. It was a good distraction since I was crammed into a packed flight. I enjoyed the book, though there were a couple of points I almost gave up on it because Gaimen kept mentioning things that sounded like the book was not going to end well. But, it turns out okay in the end. Gaimen is quite funny. One that made me LOL: "The look Jesus would have given someone who said they 'really weren't up for loaves and fishes, could he do a nice salad?'"

Publisher's summary:
God is dead. Meet the kids.

When Fat Charlie's dad named something, it stuck. Like calling Fat Charlie "Fat Charlie." Even now, twenty years later, Charlie Nancy can't shake that name, one of the many embarrassing "gifts" his father bestowed, before he dropped dead on a karaoke stage and ruined Fat Charlie's life.

Mr. Nancy left Fat Charlie things. Things like the tall, good-looking stranger who appears on Charlie's doorstep, who appears to be the brother he never knew. A brother as different from Charlie as night is from day, a brother who's going to show Charlie how to lighten up and have a little fun, just like Dear Old Dad. And all of a sudden, life starts getting very interesting for Fat Charlie.

Because, you see, Charlie's dad wasn't just any dad. He was Anansi, a trickster god, the spider-god. Anansi is the spirit of rebellion, able to overturn the social order, create wealth out of thin air, and baffle the devil. Some said he could cheat even Death himself.

Returning to the territory he so brilliantly explored in his masterful New York Times best seller American Gods, the incomparable Neil Gaiman offers up a work of dazzling ingenuity, a kaleidoscopic journey deep into myth that is at once startling, terrifying, exhilarating, and fiercely funny, a true wonder of a novel that confirms Stephen King's glowing assessment of the author as "a treasure house of story, and we are lucky to have him.

Online book shopping:
Powell's: Anansi Boys
amazon.co.uk: Anansi Boys
amazon.com: Anansi Boys: A Novel (Alex Awards (Awards))
Audible.com: Anansi Boys