Best Books, Fantasy, Fiction & Literature, For Fans Of, Literature, Similar to

The Best Books To Read For Fans Of American Gods

“What are the best books for Fans of American Gods (Book and TV Show)?” We looked at 155 of the top books, aggregating and ranking them so we could answer that very question!

The top 19 books for fans of both the Starz television show and the 2001 Neil Gaiman novel American Gods are listed below with images, links, and descriptions. The remaining titles, as well as the articles we used when aggregating, are listed below alphabetically.

Happy Scrolling!



Top Books Similar To Neil Gaiman’s American Gods



19 .) John Dies At The End by David Wong


Lists It Appears On:

  • TasteKid
  • Reddit

“STOP.

You should not have touched this book with your bare hands.

NO, don’t put it down. It’s too late.

They’re watching you.

My name is David Wong. My best friend is John. Those names are fake. You might want to change yours.

You may not want to know about the things you’ll read on these pages, about the sauce, about Korrok, about the invasion, and the future. But it’s too late. You touched the book. You’re in the game. You’re under the eye.

The only defense is knowledge. You need to read John Dies at the End, to the end. Even the part with the bratwurst. Why? You just have to trust me.”

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18 .) King Rat by China Miéville


Lists It Appears On:

  • RPG
  • SFF Chronicles

“omething is stirring in London’s dark, stamping out its territory in brickdust and blood. Something has murdered Saul Garamond’s father, and left Saul to pay for the crime.

But a shadow from the urban waste breaks into Saul’s prison cell and leads him to freedom. A shadow called King Rat, who reveals Saul’s royal heritage, a heritage that opens a new world to Saul, the world below London’s streets–a heritage that also drags Saul into King Rat’s plan for revenge against his ancient enemy,. With drum ‘n’ bass pounding the backstreets, Saul must confront the forces that would use him, the forces that would destroy him, and the forces that shape his own bizarre identity.”

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17 .) Kraken by China Miéville

Lists It Appears On:

  • Goodreads
  • Reddit

“With this outrageous new novel, China Miéville has written one of the strangest, funniest, and flat-out scariest books you will read this—or any other—year. The London that comes to life in Kraken is a weird metropolis awash in secret currents of myth and magic, where criminals, police, cultists, and wizards are locked in a war to bring about—or prevent—the End of All Things.

In the Darwin Centre at London’s Natural History Museum, Billy Harrow, a cephalopod specialist, is conducting a tour whose climax is meant to be the Centre’s prize specimen of a rare Architeuthis dux—better known as the Giant Squid. But Billy’s tour takes an unexpected turn when the squid suddenly and impossibly vanishes into thin air.

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16 .) Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko

Lists It Appears On:

  • TasteKid
  • Goodreads

“They are the “”Others,”” an ancient race of supernatural beings—magicians, shape-shifters, vampires, and healers—who live among us. Human born, they must choose a side to swear allegiance to—the Dark or the Light—when they come of age.

For a millennium, these opponents have coexisted in an uneasy peace, enforced by defenders like the Night Watch, forces of the Light who guard against the Dark. But prophecy decrees that one supreme “”Other”” will arise to spark a cataclysmic war.

Anton Gorodetsky, an untested mid-level Light magician with the Night Watch, discovers a cursed young woman—an Other of tremendous potential unallied with either side—who can shift the balance of power. With the battle lines between Light and Dark drawn, the magician must move carefully, for one wrong step could mean the beginning of annihilation.”

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15 .) Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

Lists It Appears On:

  • TasteKid
  • Reddit

“Beneath the towering bleached ribs of a dead, ancient beast lies New Crobuzon, a squalid city where humans, Re-mades, and arcane races live in perpetual fear of Parliament and its brutal militia. The air and rivers are thick with factory pollutants and the strange effluents of alchemy, and the ghettos contain a vast mix of workers, artists, spies, junkies, and whores. In New Crobuzon, the unsavory deal is stranger to none—not even to Isaac, a brilliant scientist with a penchant for Crisis Theory.

Isaac has spent a lifetime quietly carrying out his unique research. But when a half-bird, half-human creature known as the Garuda comes to him from afar, Isaac is faced with challenges he has never before fathomed. Though the Garuda’s request is scientifically daunting, Isaac is sparked by his own curiosity and an uncanny reverence for this curious stranger.

While Isaac’s experiments for the Garuda turn into an obsession, one of his lab specimens demands attention: a brilliantly colored caterpillar that feeds on nothing but a hallucinatory drug and grows larger—and more consuming—by the day. What finally emerges from the silken cocoon will permeate every fiber of New Crobuzon—and not even the Ambassador of Hell will challenge the malignant terror it invokes . . .

A magnificent fantasy rife with scientific splendor, magical intrigue, and wonderfully realized characters, told in a storytelling style in which Charles Dickens meets Neal Stephenson, Perdido Street Station offers an eerie, voluptuously crafted world that will plumb the depths of every reader’s imagination.”

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14 .) Small Gods by Terry Pratchett

Lists It Appears On:

  • TasteKid
  • RPG

“Lost in the chill deeps of space between the galaxies, it sails on forever, a flat, circular world carried on the back of a giant turtle—

Discworld

—a land where the unexpected can be expected. Where the strangest things happen to the nicest people. Like Brutha, a simple lad who only wants to tend his melon patch. Until one day he hears the voice of a god calling his name. A small god, to be sure. But bossy as Hell.”

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13 .) Smoke And Mirrors by Neil Gaiman

Lists It Appears On:

  • TasteKid
  • Project Alexandria

In the deft hands of Neil Gaiman, magic is no mere illusion . . . and anything is possible. In Smoke and Mirrors, Gaiman’s imagination and supreme artistry transform a mundane world into a place of terrible wonders—where an old woman can purchase the Holy Grail at a thrift store, where assassins advertise their services in the Yellow Pages under “Pest Control,” and where a frightened young boy must barter for his life with a mean-spirited troll living beneath a bridge by the railroad tracks. Explore a new reality, obscured by smoke and darkness yet brilliantly tangible, in this extraordinary collection of short works by a master prestidigitator. It will dazzle your senses, touch your heart, and haunt your dreams.

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12 .) Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson

Lists It Appears On:

  • TasteKid
  • Quora

“Only once in a great while does a writer come along who defies comparison—a writer so original he redefines the way we look at the world. Neal Stephenson is such a writer and Snow Crash is such a novel, weaving virtual reality, Sumerian myth, and just about everything in between with a cool, hip cybersensibility to bring us the gigathriller of the information age.

In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo’s CosoNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he’s a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that’s striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about infocalypse.”

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11 .) Someplace To Be Flying by Charles De Lint

Lists It Appears On:

  • RPG
  • Goodreads

“Lily is a photojournalist in search of the “”animal people”” who supposedly haunt the city’s darkest slums. Hank is a slumdweller who knows the bad streets all too well. One night, in a brutal incident, their two lives collide–uptown Lily and downtown Hank, each with a quest and a role to play in the secret drama of the city’s oldest inhabitants.

For the animal people walk among us. Native Americans call them the First People, but they have never left, and they claim the city for their own.

Not only have Hank and Lily stumbled onto a secret, they’ve stumbled into a war. And in this battle for the city’s soul, nothing is quite as it appears.”

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10 .) Stardust by Neil Gaiman

Lists It Appears On:

  • TasteKid
  • Reddit

Among the wondrous, beautiful, and strange literary offspring conceived by Sandman creator, multi-award winner, and #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman (Anasi Boys, Neverwhere, American Gods, Coraline, The Graveyard Book), his magical 1997 fantasy novel, Stardust, remains a top favorite. An enchanting adult fairy tale about a young man who travels beyond the boundaries of his small village to find a fallen star and win the heart of the woman he loves—the basis for the hit motion picture starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Sienna Miller, Claire Danes, and Robert DeNiro—Gaiman’s glorious fable is now available in a special keepsake edition. Here is a gift of Stardust—beautifully packaged, with a special new introduction by the author—that every Neil Gaiman devotee will want to receive.

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9 .) The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

Lists It Appears On:

  • Quora
  • TasteKid

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a triumph of originality, imagination, and storytelling, an exuberant, irresistible novel that begins in New York City in 1939. A young escape artist and budding magician named Joe Kavalier arrives on the doorstep of his cousin, Sammy Clay. While the long shadow of Hitler falls across Europe, America is happily in thrall to the Golden Age of comic books, and in a distant corner of Brooklyn, Sammy is looking for a way to cash in on the craze. He finds the ideal partner in the aloof, artistically gifted Joe, and together they embark on an adventure that takes them deep into the heart of Manhattan, and the heart of old-fashioned American ambition. From the shared fears, dreams, and desires of two teenage boys, they spin comic book tales of the heroic, fascist-fighting Escapist and the beautiful, mysterious Luna Moth, otherworldly mistress of the night. Climbing from the streets of Brooklyn to the top of the Empire State Building, Joe and Sammy carve out lives, and careers, as vivid as cyan and magenta ink. Spanning continents and eras, this superb book by one of America’s finest writers remains one of the defining novels of our modern American age.

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8 .) The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Lists It Appears On:

  • TasteKid
  • Reddit

“In this Newbery Medal-winning novel, Bod is an unusual boy who inhabits an unusual place—he’s the only living resident of a graveyard. Raised from infancy by the ghosts, werewolves, and other cemetery denizens, Bod has learned the antiquated customs of his guardians’ time as well as their ghostly teachings—such as the ability to Fade so mere mortals cannot see him.

Can a boy raised by ghosts face the wonders and terrors of the worlds of both the living and the dead? And then there are being such as ghouls that aren’t really one thing or the other.”

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7 .) Wintersmith (Discworld, #35; Tiffany Aching, #3) by Terry Pratchett

Lists It Appears On:

  • TasteKid
  • Goodreads

“The third in a series of Discworld novels starring the young witch Tiffany Aching.

When the Spirit of Winter takes a fancy to Tiffany Aching, he wants her to stay in his gleaming, frozen world. Forever. It will take all the young witch’s skill and cunning, as well as help from the legendary Granny Weatherwax and the irrepressible Wee Free Men, to survive until Spring. Because if Tiffany doesn’t make it to Spring—

—Spring won’t come.”

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6 .) Fables, Vol 1: Legends in Exile by Bill Willingham and James Jean

Lists It Appears On:

  • TasteKid
  • Bustle
  • Goodreads

When a savage creature known only as the Adversary conquered the fabled lands of legends and fairy tales, all of the infamous inhabitants of folklore were forced into exile. Disguised among the “mundys,” their name for normal citizens of modern-day New York, these magical characters created their own secret society that they call Fabletown. From their exclusive luxury apartment buildings on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, these creatures of legend must fight for their survival in the new world.

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5 .) Discworld by Terry Pratchett

Lists It Appears On:

  • Bustle
  • TasteKid
  • SFF Chronicles

“Terry Pratchett’s profoundly irreverent, bestselling novels have garnered him a revered position in the halls of parody next to the likes of Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, and Carl Hiaasen.

The Color of Magic is Terry Pratchett’s maiden voyage through the now-legendary land of Discworld. This is where it all begins—with the tourist Twoflower and his wizard guide, Rincewind.”

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4 .) The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams

Lists It Appears On:

  • Bustle
  • RPG
  • Quora

When a passenger check-in desk at London’s Heathrow Airport disappears in a ball of orange flame, the explosion is deemed an act of God. But which god, wonders holistic detective Dirk Gently? What god would be hanging around Heathrow trying to catch the 3:37 to Oslo? And what has this to do with Dirk’s latest–and late– client, found only this morning with his head revolving atop the hit record “Hot Potato”? Amid the hostile attentions of a stray eagle and the trauma of a very dirty refrigerator, super-sleuth Dirk Gently will once again solve the mysteries of the universe…

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3 .) Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

Lists It Appears On:

  • Bustle
  • TasteKid
  • RPG
  • Reddit
  • Quora

“God is dead. Meet the kids.

Fat Charlie Nancy’s normal life ended the moment his father dropped dead on a Florida karaoke stage. Charlie didn’t know his dad was a god. And he never knew he had a brother. Now brother Spider is on his doorstep—about to make Fat Charlie’s life more interesting . . . and a lot more dangerous.”

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2 .) Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett

Lists It Appears On:

  • New In Books
  • TasteKid
  • Best Fantasy Books
  • Reddit
  • The Student Room

“According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (the world’s only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in 1655, before she exploded), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner.

So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, Atlantis is rising, frogs are falling, tempers are flaring. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon—both of whom have lived amongst Earth’s mortals since The Beginning and have grown rather fond of the lifestyle—are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture.

And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist . . .”

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1 .) Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Lists It Appears On:

  • TasteKid
  • RPG
  • Reddit
  • Quora
  • SFF Chronicles
  • The Student Room

Richard Mayhew is a young man with a good heart and an ordinary life, which is changed forever when he stops to help a girl he finds bleeding on a London sidewalk. His small act of kindness propels him into a world he never dreamed existed. There are people who fall through the cracks, and Richard has become one of them. And he must learn to survive in this city of shadows and darkness, monsters and saints, murderers and angels, if he is ever to return to the London that he knew.

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The Additional Best Books For Fan’s Of American Gods



 

#BookAuthorLists
(Books Appear On 1 List Each)
20300TasteKid
21A calculus of magicSFF Chronicles
22A Canticle For LeibowitzTasteKid
23A Hat Full Of SkyTasteKid
24AbaratTasteKid
25AnathemTasteKid
26AngelmakerNick HarkawayBook Brows
27Arkham Asylum: A Serious House On Serious EarthTasteKid
28Batman: The Dark Knight ReturnsTasteKid
29Batman: The Long HalloweenTasteKid
30Bone ClocksDavid MitchellQuora
31Bring Me the Head of Prince CharmingRoger ZelaznyProject Alexandria
32Carpe JugulumTasteKid
33ChangerJane LindskoldRPG
34Cloud AtlasDavid MitchellQuora
35Coldheart CanyonCliver BarkerSFF Chronicles
36CoralineTasteKid
37CryptonomiconTasteKid
38Delta GreenRPG
39Diamond AgeNeil StephensonQuora
40Drinking Midnight WineSimon R. GreenRPG
41Elric of MelniboneMichael MoorcockReddit
42Equal RitesTasteKid
43EricTasteKid
44Farenheit TwinsMichael FaberQuora
45Feet Of ClayTasteKid
46Finder (Borderland, #8)Emma BullGoodreads
47Fragile ThingsTasteKid
48From HellTasteKid
49Gods Behaving Badly: A NovelRPG
50GODWALKERGreg StolzeRPG
51Going PostalTasteKid
52Guards! Guards!TasteKid
53Heaven’s NeedleLiane MercielProject Alexandria
54HellblazerTasteKid
55HellboyTasteKid
56His Dark Materials SeriesPhilip PullmanBustle
57HogfatherTasteKid
58HornsJoe HillReddit
59HoundedKevin HearneNew In Books
60House of LeavesReddit
61I Shall Wear MidnightTasteKid
62IdoruTasteKid
63In the Cities of Coin and Spice (The Orphan’s Tales, #2)Catherynne M. ValenteGoodreads
64In the Company of OgresA. Lee MartinezProject Alexandria
65Interesting TimesTasteKid
66InvincibleTasteKid
67JingoTasteKid
68Jonathan Strange & Mr NorrellTasteKid
69Kingdom ComeTasteKid
70Last CallTim PowersRPG
71Legends WalkingJane LindskoldRPG
72Locke & Key, Vol. 4: Keys to the KingdomJoe HillGoodreads
73LokiMike VasichBustle
74Lord of LightReddit
75Lords And LadiesTasteKid
76Lost SoulsTasteKid
77Lucifer, Vol. 10: MorningstarMike CareyGoodreads
78MageMatt WagnerRPG
79Making MoneyTasteKid
80MaskeradeTasteKid
81Men At ArmsTasteKid
82Modern MagicSFF Chronicles
83Monstrous RegimentTasteKid
84MortTasteKid
85Moving PicturesTasteKid
86Mythago WoodBest Fantasy Books
87Name of the WindReddit
88NeuromancerTasteKid
89number9dreamDavid MitchellQuora
90Paladin of Souls (World of the Five Gods, #2)Lois McMaster BujoldGoodreads
91Pattern RecognitionTasteKid
92PreacherTasteKid
93PyramidsTasteKid
94QuicksilverTasteKid
95Reaper ManTasteKid
96RingworldTasteKid
97RunawaysTasteKid
98Sin CityTasteKid
99Soul MusicTasteKid
100SourceryTasteKid
101Starship TroopersTasteKid
102Stone GuardianDanielle MonschNew In Books
103Stranger In A Strange LandTasteKid
104SummerlandMichael ChabonBustle
105The Amulet of SamarkandQuora
106The City and the CityChina MievilleReddit
107The Diamond AgeTasteKid
108The Dirty Streets of Heaven (BobDollar, #1)Goodreads
109The Edge of ReasonMelinda SnodgrassSFF Chronicles
110The Falling WomanPat MurphyGoodreads
111The Fifth ElephantTasteKid
112The GodmotherElizabeth Anne ScarboroughRPG
113The Great Book of Amber (The Chronicles of Amber, #1-10)Roger ZelaznyGoodreads
114The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the GalaxyReddit
115The Hundred Thousand KingdomsN.K. JemisinBustle
116The Illustrated ManRay BradburyProject Alexandria
117The InvisiblesTasteKid
118The Killing JokeTasteKid
119The King Must DieMary RenaultBustle
120The Last ContinentTasteKid
121The Last HeroTasteKid
122The League Of Extraordinary GentlemenTasteKid
123The Library at Mount CharScott HawkinsBook Brows
124The Light FantasticTasteKid
125The Lions of Al-RassanG.G. KayReddit
126The Mona Lisa SacrificePeter RomanBCB
127The Mote In God’s EyeTasteKid
128The Murdstone TrilogyMal PeetNew In Books
129The Neon Court (Matthew Swift, #3)Kate GriffinGoodreads
130The Ocean At The End Of The LaneTasteKid
131The Outsorcerer’s ApprenticeTom HoltNew In Books
132The Princess BrideReddit
133The Raw Shark TextsReddit
134The Salmon Of DoubtTasteKid
135The SandmanTasteKid
136The Story of the Stone (The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox, #2)Barry HughartGoodreads
137The Three Stigmata Of Palmer EldritchTasteKid
138The TruthTasteKid
139The WatchmanTasteKid
140The Wee Free MenTasteKid
141The Well of Ascension (Mistborn, #2)Brandon SandersonGoodreads
142The Yiddish Policemen’s UnionMichael ChabonQuora
143Thief Of TimeTasteKid
144Thud!TasteKid
145Under The SkinMichael FaberQuora
146Unknown ArmiesRPG
147Unseen AcademicalsTasteKid
148WatchmenTasteKid
149We3TasteKid
150WeaveworldTasteKid
151White Night (The Dresden Files, #9)Jim ButcherGoodreads
152Witches AbroadTasteKid
153Wyrd SistersTasteKid
154Zeus is DeadMichael G. MunzNew In Books
155Zoo CityLauren BeukesReddit


Similar American Gods Book Sources/Lists



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Bustle 9 Books To Read Before The New ‘American Gods’ Show Comes Out
Goodreads Books like American Gods (American Gods, #1)
New In Books Books to Read if You Like American Gods
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Quora What are some books that are like Neil Gaiman’s American Gods?
Reddit About to finish American Gods by Neil Gaiman, so what should I read next?
RPG Books similar to “American Gods.”
SFF Chronicles Similar vein to Gaiman’s ‘American Gods’?
TasteKid IF YOU LIKE
The Student Room Books similar to ‘American Gods’ by Neil Gaiman