June 27, 2014, Friday afternoon -- Reading Neil Gaiman

Near Victoria Station (in London, where I'm on vacation)

Reading American Gods, by Neil Gaiman.  It was a gift from a South African woman who befriended him and when she left town, she gave him this book.  He also receives books -- 1 or 2 a week -- from a Japanese woman who he sees at a cathedral down the street.

He reads anything with the caveat that he needs to be hooked by the second page. His favorite authors are David and Leigh Eddings, who write fantasy, and Lee Child, who writes crime novels about an ex-military police officer named Jack Reacher. 

He's always been a reader, he said, even before a construction accident (he fell four floors), which put him in a coma and then left him homeless, with plenty of time to read.