Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler

This biography provides a comprehensive account of Walt Disney's life from his boyhood in Marceline, Missouri and Kansas City to his death in Los Angeles. I thought it was especially good on his work. At least according to this book, Walt was often the guiding force behind novel ideas, but it really wasn't his skill as an animator that launched the Disney empire--it was his ability to see the cultural potential for animations. I particularly liked the accounts of Disney's collaborations with Leopold Stowkowski and Salvador Dali. The book also portrays Disney as restless: once he achieved something, his interest often turned to doing something new instead of simply repeating his success (which is not, of course, to say that his companies didn't often try to capitalize on and reproduce these successes!). I have read that the Disney family (and particuarly Diane Disney Miller) disagree with the author's characterization of Disney (especially in his relationship with his wife), but I thought the book made sense and gave a persuasive reading of Walt's life and its meaning in the midst of the American Century.

The Teleportation Accident by Ned Beaumont

This novel is exactly the sort of novel I love to read: it's witty, self-referential, aware of its own status as a novel, and a lot of fun. Egon Loeser is the painfully self-absorbed anti-hero whose world is crumbling around him (he's an artist in Berlin in the 1920s)--but he doesn't see the political dangers because of his personal problems (an inability to get his show produced or to win over the charming Adele Hitler [no relation to Adolf]). He serendipitously leaves Berlin for Los Angeles (via Paris) chasing Adele, but he doesn't have any better luck in either place either with Adele or with his show. Yet, as the novel progresses, we learn more and more about Loeser's obsession with Adriano Lavinci, an Italian set designer who died in what is known as the Teleportation Accident (one of Lavinci's sets destroyed a theater in Paris). The novel teases readers: was Lavinci a theatrical genius, or a scientist centuries ahead of his time, or a magician? I definitely want to re-read this book; it may have been my favorite entry on the 2012 Booker Long List.

Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming

In this book James Bond seems more familiar, as he teams up with Felix Leiter of the CIA again to take on SMERSH agent Mr. Big, who has apparently discovered a pirate's hoard of gold and is smuggling it into the United States and using the profits to fund communist activities. This book is clearly of its time: the way that it uses dialect and talks about race sound off-putting. But, it's more the words than the content that's offensive, and the spy story is good. The pacing is improved since Casino Royale.

Black Boy by Richard Wright

This autobiography chronicles Richard Wright's development as a writer--it starts in early childhood, when his only way of shaping and constructing his environment is through action and he vents his frustration and boredom by playing with fire (and setting the family home ablaze). Despite his frustration with his family life and with race relations in the South, and a very haphazard education (he only completes the ninth grade, and most years he only attends part of his classes), he discovers that writing and books offer him a way out of the tension he feels living as an African American man in the U.S. South. In the second half of the book, he moves to Chicago and becomes involved with the Communist Party. The book chronicles both the hope (for racial unity) and disillusion he feels as a result of his involvement with the Party. The story Wright tells is at times moving, and at other times horrific (for example, he lynches a kitten)--and this horror is necessary to his story. Wright's careful attention to the power of language--both at its most lyrical (he uses anaphora to show his childhood self confronting and moving beyond barriers to perception) and most violent (the power of words to threaten and cause violence) make this book essential for any writer, beyond its sociological importance.

The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng

This book is a beautiful meditation on art, memory, and forgiveness after great inhumanity. Judge Teoh, the narrator, returns to Yugiri, the Garden of Evening Mists, where she served an apprenticeship many years ago. As she sets down the paths her life has traveled, and attempts to bring the garden--the only Japanese garden in Malaysia--back to order, some of the mysteries of the past are unraveled and she is forced to reassess the choices she's made. I really enjoyed reading this book--it's beautiful and mysterious, and it really makes me appreciate how little of the history of Southeast Asia I know.

The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt

In this book Hannah Arendt looks at the rise of totalitarianism in the 20th Century as embodied by the two most prominent instances of it: Nazi Germany and the USSR under Stalin. Arendt traces this rise first through anti-Semitism, which began in the 19th Century, and then through imperialism to totalitarianism itself. This book is dense, comprehensive, and well argued. In addition to a lot of historical evidence, Arendt demonstrates why totalitarianism is so dangerous, and how the Nazis and Stalinist Russia used prison camps, secret police, propaganda, and conspiracy theories to dehumanize their populations.

The Last Hundred Days by Patrick McGuinness

In this book a young, British man who's recently lost his father (and his mother before that) finds himself in Bucharest, Romania, teaching at the University despite not having a bachelor's degree or even having interviewed for the position. While the first part of the book deals with his at-times naïve culture shock and his response to the Communist regime, as the story progresses, the narrator finds himself more and more deeply embroiled in the society and more and more called upon to react to the abuses of the regime. While this book is certainly about the end of the Ceauşescu regime, it's also about growing up and taking responsibility for your actions rather than drifting through life.

A Life by Elia Kazan

This autobiography recounts Kazan's life, in detail until the end of his film career, and then in sketches (mostly focusing on the death of his second wife and friends) until the late nineteen eighties. The tone of the book suggests that Kazan isn't holding anything back (not always true, as he himself admits), although he tends to speak forthrightly about most subjects (it seems the people he wants to impress, or at least not to scandalize, are his children, despite their relatively small parts in the book itself). There's a bit of back and forth--the story doesn't always go strictly chronologically, especially where Kazan's Congressional testimony in 1952 is concerned. It does give Kazan's take on that testimony in fairly straightforward rehearsal of his side of those events. Overall, the book is enjoyable--definitely an entertaining read. It explains a lot about Kazan's behavior, his choices, and his methods of directing, even if its subject is not always sympathetic (the womanizing without apology, in particular, struck me as egregious).

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson

This book portrays Berlin (and Germany) during Hitler's rise to power in the early 1930s through the lives of the American ambassador to Germany (William Dodd) and his daughter, Martha. I found this book fascinating--especially for the portrait it paints of Germany between the wars. At times, the storyline following the family struck me as a bit desultory, but overall, it gave a nuanced portrait. The book makes me think that what happened in Germany during that time was not inevitable, and that the various players were not as easily categorized as I might have suspected.

The Dogs of Riga by Henning Mankell

While this mystery starts with the discovery of two dead men in a fishing boat, it quickly becomes clear that its scope extends beyond Sweden's borders to Latvia, which is growing restive after having been a part of the Soviet Union since the end of World War II. When Inspector Wallander travels to Riga to investigate the death of a colleague he finds himself drawn beyond the official explanation in a land where he can trust no one and can't even speak the language. I really enjoyed this mystery--which was fully of twists till the very end.

The Betrayal by Helen Dunmore

This book had me captivated from almost the first page. It tells the story of Andrei, a skilled pediatrician, and his wife Anna, a nursery school teacher, who are living in Leningrad during some (at first) unspecified point during Stalin's rule--a time when World War II and the deprivations everyone faced in Leningrad are still high in many people's memories. Andrei gets called into to consult on the case of the son of a Party leader. The son has an aggressive cancer, and when his treatment doesn't go well, Andrei and Anna must negotiate their survival in a society where they cannot trust their neighbors or their colleagues. Dunmore's elegantly written book probed themes of paranoia, survival in a state of terror, love, family, betrayal, friendship, and loyalty. I probably would not have picked up this book based on its description, but I think it overcomes its description to offer a compassionate portrayal of the possibility of ordinary people to survive and even shine in their humanity even during the most difficult historical epochs.

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

This book resembles a found auto-biography: it purports to be a collection of writings by and about the fictional Harrison William Shepherd. He's practically an orphan from a very young age, but he develops a striking friendship with Frida Kahlo and Lev Trotsky, and, after Trotsky's assassination, makes a new life for himself in Asheville, North Carolina--at least until he's caught up in the Communist witch hunts following WWII. This book is both a delightful bildungsroman and a beautiful, if imaginary, glimpse into the lives of some remarkable historical figures. I would highly recommend this book.