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Title details for Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman - Available

Anansi Boys

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation

#4 in series

by Neil Gaiman
Full Cast
Audiobook
2 of 2 copies available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
2 of 2 copies available

A gripping BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Neil Gaiman's bestselling and much-loved novel
When his father dies, Fat Charlie Nancy discovers that not only was the late Mr Nancy actually the god Anansi, but that he also has a long-lost brother, Spider, who is everything Fat Charlie is not. When Spider begins to take over Fat Charlie's life, flat and even his fiancée Rosie, Fat Charlie is forced to make a pact that lands him in trouble with the gods themselves...
Anansi Boys is a story of love, laughter, music and murder, old gods and new tricks that takes Fat Charlie from his home in South London to Florida, the Caribbean, and the very Beginning of the World itself. Or the End of the World. Depending on which direction you're coming from.
Jacob Anderson stars as Charlie, and he has written and performed a specially commissioned song – 'Charlie's Song' – which forms part of the magical fabric of Anansi Boys.
Dramatised for Radio 4 by the award-winning Dirk Maggs (Neverwhere, Good Omens, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), the stellar cast of this series also includes Joseph Marcell, Lenny Henry, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Adjoa Andoh,Julie Hesmondhalgh and Julian Rhind-Tutt, as well as a cameo appearance from Neil Gaiman himself.

  • Creators

  • Series

    Neil Gaiman Full-Cast Radio Adaptations

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    February 1, 2018

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781785299452
      • File size: 94096 KB
      • Duration: 03:16:01

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Neil Gaiman's AMERICAN GODS presented a modern look at ancient gods that left fans wanting more about the characters. Gaiman's ANANSI BOYS focuses on the ancient African spider-god Anansi the Trickster. Narrator Lenny Henry has one of those great British voices that is always interesting. His perfect use of Caribbean accents and strange animalistic human voices is a joy. The story of the sons of Anansi, one with god-like powers and the other human, is compelling. Gaiman offers a twist that alone makes the story worthwhile. One amusing aspect is that one of Henry's characters, a bird-woman, sounds exactly like Yoda from STAR WARS. M.S. (c) AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from July 18, 2005
      If readers found the Sandman
      series creator's last novel, American Gods
      , hard to classify, they will be equally nonplussed—and equally entertained—by this brilliant mingling of the mundane and the fantastic. "Fat Charlie" Nancy leads a life of comfortable workaholism in London, with a stressful agenting job he doesn't much like, and a pleasant fiancée, Rosie. When Charlie learns of the death of his estranged father in Florida, he attends the funeral and learns two facts that turn his well-ordered existence upside-down: that his father was a human form of Anansi, the African trickster god, and that he has a brother, Spider, who has inherited some of their father's godlike abilities. Spider comes to visit Charlie and gets him fired from his job, steals his fiancée, and is instrumental in having him arrested for embezzlement and suspected of murder. When Charlie resorts to magic to get rid of Spider, who's selfish and unthinking rather than evil, things begin to go very badly for just about everyone. Other characters—including Charlie's malevolent boss, Grahame Coats ("an albino ferret in an expensive suit"), witches, police and some of the folk from American Gods
      —are expertly woven into Gaiman's rich myth, which plays off the African folk tales in which Anansi stars. But it's Gaiman's focus on Charlie and Charlie's attempts to return to normalcy that make the story so winning—along with gleeful, hurtling prose. Agent, Merrilee Heifetz of Writers House. 16-city author tour
      .

    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 31, 2005
      Fat Charlie Nancy's normal life is turned upside down when his father dies and a brother he never knew he had shows up at his doorstep. When that brother, Spider, starts to wear out his welcome, Fat Charlie learns that his father was not a man but the trickster god, Anansi, and both he and Spider have inherited some of Dad's godliness. This leads Fat Charlie to explore his own godly heritage in order to be rid of Spider. Listeners of Coraline
      can attest that Gaiman is a fine reader, so any narrators who read his novels have a lot to live up to. Lenny Henry, however, is absolutely the perfect choice to read Anansi Boys
      —he not only has Gaiman's cadences and style down pat, but he also ranges his accent from British to Caribbean with ease and provides distinct and memorable voices for all of the characters. An absolutely top-notch performance, one that makes a terrific book even better. Simultaneous release with the Morrow hardcover (Reviews, July 18).

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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