Never finished it....didn't like it at all.

Can't even remember what it was about, but a lot of murders and sci-fi....don't like sci-fi. ( )

I had to come home so I wanted a book to read on the train. I went to Janpath, an got this one from a little street bookshop. When I had set out to acquire a book, I had planned to buy both this one and AS Byatt's Possession, so when I got out of this little shop, I went up Janpath, and crossed over and walked down the road, and on a whim, went inside Cafe Coffee Day.

And this is a book you should read alone in a coffee shop, a plate of Chocolate Truffle in front of you. And as you tuck in the rich chocolate, and look forward to going home, you can savour dialouge such as*

I gave her my heart to keep, in case I lose it again.

Home is where my heart is. But my heart is here. I am home

If books had flavours, this one would be chocolate truffle, rich, chocolatey, comforting. Not like being home, which is somewhere between mildly boring and extremely annoying, but like coming home. Like first love, like memories of childhood, not like happiness, but like the promise of happiness, like a lovely dream which breaks your heart when you wake up.

But holding an actual book in your hand, the coarse pages of good quality recyclable paper, and the way they smell, sitting in an empty coffeeshop, walking down the road, lost to the world, in dreams which are both too silly and too pretty, being a teenaged girl again... there are times when you can believe in the dreams of your childhood, and there are times which are simply the best time you ever had.

And no, I won't recommend this, or mine, teenaged imagination to anyone, but this is the book I will end up writing if I was a writer. Because I too am unable to see the ugliness of suffering, the boringness of waiting. I too am young enough to believe that someone will wait from the age of 36 to 82, for one glimpse of her first love. Well I would like to believe that last one, I really would.

And this is the last illusion left, I still believe in true love. And the day I get married, I will have to give up o it, and then I will have nothing left to believe, nothing at all. ( )

Interesting and a page turner. Kept me company during my 2-wk stay in the US and whenever I was eating alone. Though Gaiman never really explained why ppl from London Above cannot notice the existence of ppl from London Below or ppl who had fallen between the cracks so to speak. Is it an arrangement from some Powers That Be and we will just have to accept it is so? Overall still a good read and I wouldn't mind reading more adventures of the Below. ( )

Not without flaws, but a definite improvement over the BBC miniseries. ( )

I always think that I don't enjoy fantasy set in the modern-day, that it just doesn't do anything for me the way that historical fantasy does. And then I read a Neil Gaiman book and start drooling. Honestly, the man has got skill. What a marvelous writer. I didn't know that Neverwhere was a tv series in the UK as well. I am not sure if I should watch the miniseries now, after having read the book. The book was so great that I feel certain the tv version would be a letdown. But maybe not.

Seriously, though, I need to get my hands on more Neil Gaiman. I don't know if I can really say why I liked this book so much. Sometimes, it's really just a matter of the right book at the right time. Maybe this was one of those instances. But for some reason, the characters really resonated with me, and the writing seemed so lyrical as to almost be set to music at times. I could have chosen from so many very descriptive quotes to showcase above- I just chose one.

I loved the way Gaiman wrote this book with a nod to London's history, showing how so many places and things that are now just names- they all resonate with a past that deserves acknowledgement and respect. Where do those Underground stops get their names? Gaiman knows, and tells us. It's remarkable how many important historic events and ideas and places get distilled down through the ages until all the deep meaning is almost completely forgotten. And it's amazing that Gaiman considered that angle to be novel-worthy, and wrote such an incredible novel as this one about just such a situation.

Ok, ok, and I admit to being more than a little in love with the Marquis de Carabas. As Richard Mayhew aptly describes, "the Marquis managed to make being pushed around in a wheelchair look a romantic and swashbuckling thing to do." Sigh. What a man ;-) I'll let you discover him for yourself.

This book cries out for a sequel. And a prequel, really. I don't know if either of the two will ever exist, but here's hoping that there's a possibility. ( )