To Read & To Write

"Neverwhere" is the first book I've read by Neil Gaiman and I thoroughly enjoyed following the main character, Richard Mayhew: a guy down on his luck a billion times over due to his naivety and weirdly optimistic nihilism (perhaps a more sufficient term would be: apathy). Admittedly, Gaiman's style is decidedly not literary (IMHO - at least not here), and I think "Neverwhere" could undoubtedly pass for a teen or YA novel. I couldn't tick off more than one star for that complaint, though. Part of that is because Richard is a genuinely special character. His whole problem within this story - which I found extremely relatable - is that he cannot seem to accept the fact that his old life, his "normal" life, his previous "reality" has been taken from him because of a chance meeting. His choice, to basically help a dying creature on the streets of London (her name is Door, I believe she's an elf), completely changes his entire notio...

This is exactly the kind of book about London, England that I didn't know I was looking for. I've been avoiding travel books for the most part and have instead been mapping out places on my own that I'd like to go (during my honeymoon this May!) based off of books I've read and movies I've seen. For example, the Hundred Acre Wood that A.A. Milne based his Winnie-the-Pooh tales off of (it's a real place) and Merlin's cave (real too). I scoped out some venues where my husband and I can try falconry, as I was inspired by Helen MacDonald's nonfiction book on the subject, "H is for Hawk" (and her love for her hawk Mable). I'm thrilled to visit as many castles as possible, particularly because of Queen Victoria and the Victorian Era, after having read Daisy Goodwin's biography and then watching the PBS series (Kensington Palace, here I come!). Wilkie Collins' "The Woman in White" makes me excited to see large residential En...