Anansi Boys

Why it’s on the list: Neil Gaiman’s comedy about inheritance: Mr. Nancy — an incarnation of the West African trickster god Anansi — dies, and the embarrassed son who spent his life avoiding him discovers he has a brother. Not a sequel to American Gods, though Mr. Nancy is in both.

Where I heard about it

• a16z’s infrastructure team — on the a16z Infra Reading List, in the Fantasy section, the fourth of four titles under the Neil Gaiman entry. Their note grants that his books “tend to be pretty similar to one another” while keeping four of them; this is the funniest of the four.

Connections

• a16z Infra Reading List — the list this came from; Fantasy section, Gaiman author entry.
• Neil Gaiman — the author.
• Good Omens — first of the four selected works.
• Stardust — second of the four.
• American Gods — third of the four, and where Mr. Nancy first appears.
• a16z — the firm whose infrastructure team curates the list.