“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!
“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.”
“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.”
Lists It Appears On:
“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.
“
Lists It Appears On:
“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.”
Lists It Appears On:
“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.”
Lists It Appears On:
“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.”
Lists It Appears On:
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.
Lists It Appears On:
“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.”
Lists It Appears On:
“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.”
Lists It Appears On:
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.
Lists It Appears On:
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.
Lists It Appears On:
“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.”
Lists It Appears On:
“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.”
Lists It Appears On:
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.
Lists It Appears On:
“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.”
Lists It Appears On:
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…
Lists It Appears On:
“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.”
Lists It Appears On:
“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 . . .”
Lists It Appears On:
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.
| # | Book | Author | Lists |
| (Books Appear On 1 List Each) | |||
| 20 | 300 | TasteKid | |
| 21 | A calculus of magic | SFF Chronicles | |
| 22 | A Canticle For Leibowitz | TasteKid | |
| 23 | A Hat Full Of Sky | TasteKid | |
| 24 | Abarat | TasteKid | |
| 25 | Anathem | TasteKid | |
| 26 | Angelmaker | Nick Harkaway | Book Brows |
| 27 | Arkham Asylum: A Serious House On Serious Earth | TasteKid | |
| 28 | Batman: The Dark Knight Returns | TasteKid | |
| 29 | Batman: The Long Halloween | TasteKid | |
| 30 | Bone Clocks | David Mitchell | Quora |
| 31 | Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming | Roger Zelazny | Project Alexandria |
| 32 | Carpe Jugulum | TasteKid | |
| 33 | Changer | Jane Lindskold | RPG |
| 34 | Cloud Atlas | David Mitchell | Quora |
| 35 | Coldheart Canyon | Cliver Barker | SFF Chronicles |
| 36 | Coraline | TasteKid | |
| 37 | Cryptonomicon | TasteKid | |
| 38 | Delta Green | RPG | |
| 39 | Diamond Age | Neil Stephenson | Quora |
| 40 | Drinking Midnight Wine | Simon R. Green | RPG |
| 41 | Elric of Melnibone | Michael Moorcock | |
| 42 | Equal Rites | TasteKid | |
| 43 | Eric | TasteKid | |
| 44 | Farenheit Twins | Michael Faber | Quora |
| 45 | Feet Of Clay | TasteKid | |
| 46 | Finder (Borderland, #8) | Emma Bull | Goodreads |
| 47 | Fragile Things | TasteKid | |
| 48 | From Hell | TasteKid | |
| 49 | Gods Behaving Badly: A Novel | RPG | |
| 50 | GODWALKER | Greg Stolze | RPG |
| 51 | Going Postal | TasteKid | |
| 52 | Guards! Guards! | TasteKid | |
| 53 | Heaven’s Needle | Liane Merciel | Project Alexandria |
| 54 | Hellblazer | TasteKid | |
| 55 | Hellboy | TasteKid | |
| 56 | His Dark Materials Series | Philip Pullman | Bustle |
| 57 | Hogfather | TasteKid | |
| 58 | Horns | Joe Hill | |
| 59 | Hounded | Kevin Hearne | New In Books |
| 60 | House of Leaves | ||
| 61 | I Shall Wear Midnight | TasteKid | |
| 62 | Idoru | TasteKid | |
| 63 | In the Cities of Coin and Spice (The Orphan’s Tales, #2) | Catherynne M. Valente | Goodreads |
| 64 | In the Company of Ogres | A. Lee Martinez | Project Alexandria |
| 65 | Interesting Times | TasteKid | |
| 66 | Invincible | TasteKid | |
| 67 | Jingo | TasteKid | |
| 68 | Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell | TasteKid | |
| 69 | Kingdom Come | TasteKid | |
| 70 | Last Call | Tim Powers | RPG |
| 71 | Legends Walking | Jane Lindskold | RPG |
| 72 | Locke & Key, Vol. 4: Keys to the Kingdom | Joe Hill | Goodreads |
| 73 | Loki | Mike Vasich | Bustle |
| 74 | Lord of Light | ||
| 75 | Lords And Ladies | TasteKid | |
| 76 | Lost Souls | TasteKid | |
| 77 | Lucifer, Vol. 10: Morningstar | Mike Carey | Goodreads |
| 78 | Mage | Matt Wagner | RPG |
| 79 | Making Money | TasteKid | |
| 80 | Maskerade | TasteKid | |
| 81 | Men At Arms | TasteKid | |
| 82 | Modern Magic | SFF Chronicles | |
| 83 | Monstrous Regiment | TasteKid | |
| 84 | Mort | TasteKid | |
| 85 | Moving Pictures | TasteKid | |
| 86 | Mythago Wood | Best Fantasy Books | |
| 87 | Name of the Wind | ||
| 88 | Neuromancer | TasteKid | |
| 89 | number9dream | David Mitchell | Quora |
| 90 | Paladin of Souls (World of the Five Gods, #2) | Lois McMaster Bujold | Goodreads |
| 91 | Pattern Recognition | TasteKid | |
| 92 | Preacher | TasteKid | |
| 93 | Pyramids | TasteKid | |
| 94 | Quicksilver | TasteKid | |
| 95 | Reaper Man | TasteKid | |
| 96 | Ringworld | TasteKid | |
| 97 | Runaways | TasteKid | |
| 98 | Sin City | TasteKid | |
| 99 | Soul Music | TasteKid | |
| 100 | Sourcery | TasteKid | |
| 101 | Starship Troopers | TasteKid | |
| 102 | Stone Guardian | Danielle Monsch | New In Books |
| 103 | Stranger In A Strange Land | TasteKid | |
| 104 | Summerland | Michael Chabon | Bustle |
| 105 | The Amulet of Samarkand | Quora | |
| 106 | The City and the City | China Mieville | |
| 107 | The Diamond Age | TasteKid | |
| 108 | The Dirty Streets of Heaven (Bob | Dollar, #1) | Goodreads |
| 109 | The Edge of Reason | Melinda Snodgrass | SFF Chronicles |
| 110 | The Falling Woman | Pat Murphy | Goodreads |
| 111 | The Fifth Elephant | TasteKid | |
| 112 | The Godmother | Elizabeth Anne Scarborough | RPG |
| 113 | The Great Book of Amber (The Chronicles of Amber, #1-10) | Roger Zelazny | Goodreads |
| 114 | The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy | ||
| 115 | The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms | N.K. Jemisin | Bustle |
| 116 | The Illustrated Man | Ray Bradbury | Project Alexandria |
| 117 | The Invisibles | TasteKid | |
| 118 | The Killing Joke | TasteKid | |
| 119 | The King Must Die | Mary Renault | Bustle |
| 120 | The Last Continent | TasteKid | |
| 121 | The Last Hero | TasteKid | |
| 122 | The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen | TasteKid | |
| 123 | The Library at Mount Char | Scott Hawkins | Book Brows |
| 124 | The Light Fantastic | TasteKid | |
| 125 | The Lions of Al-Rassan | G.G. Kay | |
| 126 | The Mona Lisa Sacrifice | Peter Roman | BCB |
| 127 | The Mote In God’s Eye | TasteKid | |
| 128 | The Murdstone Trilogy | Mal Peet | New In Books |
| 129 | The Neon Court (Matthew Swift, #3) | Kate Griffin | Goodreads |
| 130 | The Ocean At The End Of The Lane | TasteKid | |
| 131 | The Outsorcerer’s Apprentice | Tom Holt | New In Books |
| 132 | The Princess Bride | ||
| 133 | The Raw Shark Texts | ||
| 134 | The Salmon Of Doubt | TasteKid | |
| 135 | The Sandman | TasteKid | |
| 136 | The Story of the Stone (The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox, #2) | Barry Hughart | Goodreads |
| 137 | The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch | TasteKid | |
| 138 | The Truth | TasteKid | |
| 139 | The Watchman | TasteKid | |
| 140 | The Wee Free Men | TasteKid | |
| 141 | The Well of Ascension (Mistborn, #2) | Brandon Sanderson | Goodreads |
| 142 | The Yiddish Policemen’s Union | Michael Chabon | Quora |
| 143 | Thief Of Time | TasteKid | |
| 144 | Thud! | TasteKid | |
| 145 | Under The Skin | Michael Faber | Quora |
| 146 | Unknown Armies | RPG | |
| 147 | Unseen Academicals | TasteKid | |
| 148 | Watchmen | TasteKid | |
| 149 | We3 | TasteKid | |
| 150 | Weaveworld | TasteKid | |
| 151 | White Night (The Dresden Files, #9) | Jim Butcher | Goodreads |
| 152 | Witches Abroad | TasteKid | |
| 153 | Wyrd Sisters | TasteKid | |
| 154 | Zeus is Dead | Michael G. Munz | New In Books |
| 155 | Zoo City | Lauren Beukes | |
| Source | Article |
| BCB | If you like American Gods, you’ll love… |
| Best Fantasy Books | Books like American Gods? |
| Book Brows | Readalikes |
| 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 |
| Project Alexandria | American Gods |
| Quora | What are some books that are like Neil Gaiman’s American Gods? |
| 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 |
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