The Yips by Nicola Barker

This book is a sprawling, funny comedy of manners that manages an ensemble cast very well as it exploits the wild coincidences that occur when a washed-up pro golfer returns to the area where one of his stray balls hurt a bystander when it hit her in the head. I enjoyed the improbable coincidences and the sense of humor that marked this book.

Swimming Home by Deborah Levy

This book is a quirky novel about a family under pressure and on holiday. The stresses on the family's relationships become clear when they find a woman floating in the pool of the home they've rented. She's invited to stay (no room at the inn, as it turns out) and her presence highlights the unhappiness of the rest of the family. The whole book has a surrealistic, dreamlike quality--the point is as much the objects and other descriptions as the plot. Shortlisted for the 2012 Booker prize.

Moon Palace by Paul Auster

There is something both absurd and beautiful about this book, whose protagonist, Marco Stanley Fogg, after the death of his uncle (his only remaining family) drifts through college and life, eventually wasting away to almost nothing, until he is saved by a girl he's met once and his college roommate, and takes a job that leads him (temporarily) to the family he didn't know he was missing. There's a great deal of playful imagination in the book, and the West looms large--the same sort of West that fills the middle chunk of Willa Cather's The Professor's House. The image of the moon, too, fills the pages of the book. The tone of the book was very inviting; I could barely stand to put it down. I am looking forward to reading more of Auster.

Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel

I enjoyed this book much more than The Life of Pi, Martel's previous bestseller. At times it struck me as a bit smug (Henry seems to stand in pretty obviously for Martel), and at times the violence of the text really shocked me (although I don't know that it was inappropriate in a book about the Holocaust). I was really intrigued by the play Beatrice and Virgil: I thought it was very well done, in the manner of Beckett. I know this book will remain in my mind for a long time--there's a lot to ponder.

The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett

In this book Terry Pratchett parodies any number of fantasy conventions in his Discworld series. I think the funniest part, for my money, was Rincewind trying to figure out how to harness lightning. The plot isn't terribly important: Rincewind and Twoflower travel around the Discworld (so you get to see a lot of how it works) and it ends on a literal cliffhanger--they've just gone over the edge of the Disc. Definitely funny enough to keep me coming back for the next installment.

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

This book is clearly rich: there's a lot a careful reader could do with the ideas in it, the images Vonnegut uses to get to the ideas, and the humor. While I appreciated the aesthetic value of the book, and found its ideas about stasis, free will, and the effect of war (and destruction like Dresden more specifically) on the human spirit compelling, I don't all out adore the book. The style doesn't quite resonate as it could.

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

When I first picked up this book with the intention of reading it, I quickly gave up: it was hard to follow and tedious. Coming back to the book after several months, though, I cannot believe what I was missing. The very parts I found boring and irrelevant are actually wildly funny. One has to be patient with the digressions--indeed the novel is more digression than anything else--but everything comes together much more neatly than one might expect. I also love the innovation in terms of the printing process: Sterne inserted a black page, a marbled page, several blank pages, and "tore out" a chapter. Further, he has very unconventional typesetting, dashes, and other printers' marks. This book demands its readers learn how to read again, and the fruit of the labor is well worth the work.

Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

The second novel in this omnibus edition, Through the Looking Glass continues Alice's adventures, this time organized around a game of chess. The backwards nature of the world through looking glass is particularly well-realized. Many of Lewis's most beloved poems, including "The Walrus and the Carpenter," and "Jabberwocky" appear in this novel. Tenniel's classic illustrations accompany this edition, and add a lot to the reading experience. The more adult themes that accompany this book include the question of whether language reflects inherent properties, and what's in a name.

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Alice in Wonderland, the first of two novels in this omnibus edition, is generally read as a children's story. As delightful as children find this fantastical world, Carroll's text grapples with questions of identity, language, and reason that anyone could consider seriously. Particularly intriguing are Alice's continual questioning of who she is (as her size is constantly fluctuating) and the novel's critique of learning by rote.