The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Dave McKean

This book is a marvelous story about a young man coming of age. In addition to the bildungsroman at the heart of the story--which is quite well done--there are the brilliant surrounding settings. I really enjoyed the idea of Bod being raised in a graveyard and hearing the stories of all the residents of the graveyard. There was also a healthy dose of mythology and the otherworldly. It all came together for a really wonderful story.

The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson

I really enjoyed this book, which is set in a world where the United States are actually the United Islands, and in which certain people have the ability to draw lines and shapes with chalk and then make the chalk obey their bidding and even affect the physical world. These people need this ability because the United States is populated by wild chalkings which would destroy its citizens without rithmatists (the people with the chalking ability) to protect them. There was a great mystery, a good dose of a young man learning more about his family and himself, and the promise of more to happen in this world. I'm looking forward to the sequel!

Raven Girl by Audrey Niffenegger

This book is an odd story. Niffenegger wrote it at the request of the Royal Ballet to provide a modern fairy tale as backstory for the new ballet they recently created. I am very curious about how this story might be staged as a ballet. It's dark and confusing at times, which is appropriate for a fairy tale, and although some questions linger, I think as a fairy tale, it works. The illustrations are beautiful.

A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett

In this book Tiffany Aching leaves home to train as a witch, but must face the hiven, an enemy which can get inside her head and turn her downright nasty. I liked the second half of this book, which featured Tiffany thinking for herself on how to finally defeat the hiven and what it means to be a witch better than the first, where she was more passive. The second half also has a good appearance by Granny Weatherwax, who is as delightful as always. Like the other young adult Discworld books, I don't think the humor, parody, and satire work as well here as it does in the adult books.

Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor

This book is an excellent coming of age story with a good dose of fantasy. Although Sunny was born in the United States, her parents have moved the family back to their native Nigeria. Sunny doesn't fit in because she's albino...and because she's a Leopard Person (she can work magic, or juju). But with a serial killer on the loose, Sunny has to find out who she is and what she can do quickly. This book is full of Nigerian folklore, and a great story about finding your place and your identity. I hope Ms. Okorafor writes more of Sunny's adventures.

Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle

This book owes something to the beginning of Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: it's narrated by an Irish child struggling to make sense of his world. The plot develops slowly and secondarily to character development. By the time I realized I was, in part, reading the story of the dissolution of the Clarkes' marriage, I was halfway through. The prose is beautiful and the story is moving. Winner of the 1993 Booker prize.

The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson

This novel tells the tale of Jun Do, whose mother has disappeared and whose father, head of an orphanage, denies his paternity. After a famine, Jun Do finds himself with many orphans in the army. As his career continues, he rises through the North Korean military and intelligence communities, and quickly falls into prison, where he realizes he can remake his life. The book is many things: part thriller, part Bildungsroman, part romance, and part exploration of how human personality can continue thrive under a savage dictatorship, it moves quickly to its climax, bewildering at first, but ultimately beautiful.

Der Vorleser by Bernhard Schlink

I read this book in German. It starts as a conventional bildungsroman--a teenager falls in love with an older woman, but the affair ends and the boy moves on. Later, the young man, now a law student, comes across his former lover again--as one of the defendants in a trial which is trying to determine the guilt of former concentration camp guards. The novel explores the question of secrets--what secrets are most important, what actions should we be ashamed of--and the question of fitting in--what skills are necessary to live in our world, what might those who lack these skills be forced to do to make up for that lack. There's no moral high ground here, and no absolution in the end. But if we cannot forgive, we can still understand, and mourn the losses and broken lives all around.

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

This book is first in a trilogy set in a world that seems to have Russian roots. Alina, an indifferent mapmaker, and Mal, an excellent tracker, have been friends ever since they grew up in the same orphanage. But in a moment of danger, Alina discovers she has great powers--a magic that no one else has--and is taken away to learn to use them. But Alina discovers that she may not have the whole story and that those teaching her have been lying to her. The magic system in this story strikes me as original, but it wasn't terribly difficult to figure out. I enjoyed this book.

Fire Down Below by William Golding

This book is about the end of Edmund Talbot's journey to Australia. After a risky repair to the mast (which involves setting a fire in the very bowels of the ship), the ship limps its way into Sydney harbor. But as they arrive, Edmund realizes that everything has changed--both internally and externally. I think that this book is a great conclusion to the trilogy, and that the trilogy is greater than the sum of its parts. While I really disliked Edmund in the first book, he's grown and changed in realistic ways into a much better hero by the end of the trilogy. Stick with these books--all three are vital.

Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner

This book is about a middle-aged romance writer who's sent away to a small hotel in Switzerland by her friends for her own good (after she jilts her boring fiancé in favor of the married man with whom she's been having an affair). As she settles into life at the hotel, she reexamines her choices--in friendships, in romances, and in career, and is ultimately able to see past the temptations of comfort. I enjoyed this book but wasn't overwhelmed by it. Winner of the 1995 Booker Prize.

A Visitation of Spirits by Randall Kenan

This novel explores Horace Cross's struggle to find his place in a small, tightly-knit, religious town in North Carolina while accepting his identity; he attempts to reconcile his family's expectations and the religious truths with which he's been raised with his growing awareness of his homosexuality. Although Horace cannot come up with a workable solution (he turns to magic and demons, which ultimately betray him), the book uses its beautiful style and complex structure to give depth to Horace's experience and to the spirits of his family which haunt him and which have their own secrets.

Bloodline by Ernest Gaines

This volume collects five stories by Ernest Gaines that mostly focus on the problem of becoming a man or asserting your position in a society that is designed to tear you down because of your race. Gaines's characters don't just turn to violence or protest, however: living or working within the society while calmly refusing to accept indignities or charity seems to be more of the model his characters work with.

The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst

This book is a bildungsroman of sorts of Nick Guest, a young gay man who spends the 1980s living in London at the wealthy, conservative, and political active family of a college friend of his. The book is a comedy of manners that exposes the emptiness not only of Nick's life but also of his friends and the people in his social milieu. As personal and political disaster close in on Nick and his household, he's left with the memory of the various lines of beauty (of someone's body, architectural, or even lines of cocaine) that he's experienced, but not much hope for the future. I found this book to be an extremely compelling read: the plot moves forward organically and the prose is beautifully styled. Winner of the 2004 Booker Prize.

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 Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter

These stories are like icebergs: they're deeper than they first appear on the surface. For example, "Old Mortality" seems like a bildungsroman about Miranda growing up, but as we look deeper at the stories she's told, we see the destructive way the family has used romance and fiction to replace history and lived experience: stories about Aunt Amy (a tragic belle figure who died young) crowd out memories of the Civil War. I also really enjoyed "Noon Wine"--when the mysterious hired hand's past catches up with him, Mr. Thompson realizes both the extent to which he can be moved to act and the extent to which his motivations may be mistrusted by his community. Many of the stories feature great character development--a strong collection.

King Rat by China Miéville

I really enjoyed this book--although it's noticeably an early work, you can see some of Miéville's best traits in this story. Saul Garamond returns home to a camping trip to discover that his father's been killed and that he is half rat--and heir to King Rat himself. Now he must help King Rat, Anansi (ruler of the spiders), and Loblob (leader of the birds) defeat the Piper, who's begun to take an unhealthy interest in his friends. There's a lot of creativity here, and some great politicking. A wonderful coming-of-age story.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

This book takes the reader on a delightful journey into a gothic world: Spain in the years after the Spanish Civil War. Daniel Sempere, aged 10, is taken by his father to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books and allowed to pick one to take and to care for. His choice, The Shadow of the Wind by Julián Carax, will shape the rest of his life. The story is gothic in the best sense: it's full of creepy old houses, mistaken identities, and misunderstandings. Even if you think you have a handle on who is who, there are all sorts of twists before everything is finally sorted out. There's also a deep love of literature embedded in its plot: it's a story about how stories are told and why they move us. It's definitely the kind of book I want to read again and again.

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.

Railsea by China Miéville

This book tells an engrossing story set in a faintly recognizable but outlandish world. Islands of what might look to us like normalcy are connected by the railsea, train lines that twist & tangle over earth too dangerous to walk on (where moles, worms, & earwigs have grown in size & become genuine dangers to humans). Technology is salvaged by some trains, others carry goods, wage war, or engage in piracy. But we're treated to a ride on a moler, which hunts the massive animals of the railsea. In part, I loved this book for its imaginative world, & in part for the conceits which seems to speak to some primitive part of humanity (you can't step on the ground, or else!). I enjoyed seeing Sham ap Sooprap grow up. But mostly I loved it because in telling its story so well, it talks back to many other great books: Moby Dick, Robinson Crusoe, & Treasure Island, to name three obvious starting places. This is the kind of fantasy that got me started reading fantasy, & it's the kind of fantasy I want to read again & again & again.