Home Sweet Own Book 28

For short stories I read Neil Gaiman’s first anthology, Smoke and Mirrors. So good!

I love Neil Gaiman anthologies. This one has short stories, poems, and 2 page tales that sometimes land somewhere in between. It took me a while to get through this because I liked to read it a little at a time and digest it. Everything I’ve seen him do is of such quality that it deserves not to be rushed through.

Some of them were original ideas like Changes, Babycakes, Cold Colors, and Foreign Parts. Others played off existing ideas or themes like Chivalry, Troll Bridge, Bay Wolf, Murder Mysteries, and Snow White (chilling). I also really liked The Price, The Sweeper of Dreams, Desert Wind and Vampire Sestina (I didn’t even know what that was before this).

One thing Gaiman had that was brilliant was a blurb about each piece in the Introduction. It was really cool to read the intro pieces after I’d been away from the book for a while. A must read for any Gaiman fan.

1) Fiction – A Once Crowded Sky by Tom King

2) Nonfiction – The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett

3) Sci-Fi – Redshirts by John Scalzi

4) Fantasy – The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde

5) Mystery – Book of Lies by Brad Meltzer

6) Horror – Call of the Jersey Devil by Aurelio Voltaire

7) Memoir/Biography – Data, A Love Story by Amy Webb

8) Chick Lit – Me and Mr. Darcy by Alexandra Potter

9) Feminist – Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan

10) Teen – What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen

11) Holiday

12) Essays – What Was I Thinking? ed. by Barbara Davilman & Liz Dubelman

13) Short Stories – Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman

14) Library

15) Animal

16) Book about Books – Judging a Book By Its Lover by Lauren Leto

17) New – Pitch Perfect by Mickey Rapkin

18) Old – Dark and Stormy Knights edited by P. N. Elrod

19) Pop Science – Why Men Fake It by Abraham Morgentaler, MD

20) Near

21) Far

22) Graphic Novel – Love and Capes: Do You Want to Know a Secret? by Thomas F. Zahler

23) Reread – Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

24) Wild Card

25) Otherworldly Creature

26) Free – Point Your Face at This by Demetri Martin

27) Noteworthy

28) Bestseller – How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

29) Themed Anthology – Red edited by Kris Goldsmith

30) Steampunk – The Immersion Book of Steampunk edited by Gareth Jones and Carmelo Rafala

31) Movie-Book

32) Media – Doctor Who: Touched By an Angel by Jonathan Morris

33) Travel – Love with a Chance of Drowning by Torre DeRoche

34) Food

35) Classic – Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

36) Humor – Sleep Talkin’ Man by Karen Slavick-Lennar

37) Poetry

38) Past – Stasiland by Anna Funde

39) Future

40) Dystopia/Post-Apocalyptic

41) Zombie

42) Sports – Red Rising by Ted Starkey

Music: Sandstorm by David Garrett