Coraline by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Dave McKean

This book tells the story of Coraline, who trades her family for an empty mirror family, and then must decide how to get her real family back. It's a nice story of persistence and the substance of things, but I just didn't like it as well as The Graveyard Book. It's simple, and I appreciate how well it all works together, but it was just missing a certain spark for me.

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 Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

This book's narrator, upon returning home for a family funeral, inexplicably finds himself drawn back to his old home--and even more so--to the farm down the lane from that home. When he arrives, he realizes that he has suppressed part of his childhood. As he starts to remember what happened at the ocean at the end of the lane, we're drawn into a world of mystery and myth--one where dark powers threaten perhaps all of human happiness. As always, Gaiman demonstrates his marvelous powers of storytelling and his strong grasp of what story means.

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.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

While I enjoyed this book from the start, as layers started to peel back and lies started to be exposed, I was drawn even more to the story. I loved the way this story revealed the lies the characters told each other, and the plotting and counter plotting of the protagonists, Nick and Amy Dunne. When Amy disappears on their fifth wedding anniversary, we see the facade they built start to crack, and gradually learn how this couple brings out both the best and the worst in each other. I'd highly recommend this book as a summer read.

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner

This book follows Lyman Ward tracing his own family history--in particular that of his grandmother, who was friends with a number of nineteenth-century movers and thinkers--as he's confined to his wheelchair and fighting with his son for his independence. But as Ward traces the events of his grandmother's life, the reader gradually becomes aware that the difficulties and challenges she faced (particularly in her marriage) have more than historical interest for Lyman. While the book never directly answers the question of whether history must repeat itself, it suggests that by delving into the past, we can learn to understand our worst tendencies, even if we can't overcome them.

The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? by Jared Diamond

This book compares traditional societies (which have dominated the vast majority of human history) to state societies like the United States in order to think about the ways in which we can learn from traditional societies in the Western world. While Diamond acknowledges that we may not want to return to many aspects of traditional societies (particularly their approaches to war and strangers), we might adopt (or re-adopt) some of their practices selectively, such as bilingualism, forms of conflict resolution, and forms of child-rearing, and pay attention to other practices in order to modify our lives for the better (for example, we could cut back on the salt and sugar in our diets to reduce illnesses like hypertension and diabetes). I found the book very entertaining (although the main argument was repeated so many times in similar form that it got a little repetitive).

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 Iron King by Maurice Druon, translated by Humphrey Hare

This book starts in France with a sibling rivalry: the wives of Philip the Fair's sons are rumored to be unfaithful, and Philip's daughter Isabella, trapped in a loveless marriage to the King of England, wants to do something about it. But when the family is royal, the repercussions of a family fight are wide: they extend to the church and the very peace of the kingdom. I really enjoyed this book, which is historical fiction in the best French tradition and sets up a series clearly and compellingly.

The Edge of Doom by Amanda Cross

This book seems to overstate its sense of urgency both in its title and in its jacket copy to me. Kate Fansler suddenly discovers one reason that she may be so disconnected from her brothers is that she had a different father (proven via DNA testing, no less!). But she quickly discovers that her father has plenty to hide in his past. This mystery certainly helped explain Kate's character, but it was less good as a mystery.

Speaking from Among the Bones by Alan Bradley

In this book Flavia de Luce begins solving a mystery starting in the church: when they plan to exhume St. Tancred for the 500th anniversary of his death, little do the villagers of Bishop's Lacey expect to find a more fresh body in the tomb. But there is Mr. Collicutt, the organist who disappeared several weeks ago, and Flavia believes (as usual) that it's up to her to solve the mystery. In so doing, she finds that the roots of this mystery run deep--both beneath the church and into her own family history. The narrator of this audiobook was really excellent--in addition to the great story, it was a pleasure to listen to!

Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe by Nancy Goldstone

This book is part biography and part history. It's about the four daughters of Raymond Berenger, count of Provence. Marguerite and Eleanor marry the kings of France (Louis IX) and England (Henry III), respectively, and the two younger daughters marry their sisters' brothers-in-law. Both of these brothers are crowned kings in their own right (although they do less ruling). Sanchia marries Richard of Cornwall, who is briefly king of Germany, and Beatrice inherits Provence and marries Charles of Anjou who takes the throne of Sicily. I was very interested in the power politics behind the thrones, and I loved reading the history associated with these four women. I was surprised by how much a king's prowess in battle mattered in the Middle Ages, and by how religious Louis and Henry both were. I also enjoyed a minor theory expounded in the book: while earlier Provence had been the center of a literary movement (troubadours writing poems about courtly love) after Raymond Berenger died, there was no count (and thus no court) in residence in Provence (Beatrice lived in Sicily, and in other places, after her marriage), so there was not the same support for the arts, and the interest in love poetry moved south--to Italy.

The Bone People by Keri Hulme

This book begins when a troubled young boy, Simon, breaks into Kerewin Holmes's tower. Kerewin, a loner, gradually becomes closer to Simon and his adoptive father Joe. But as Kerewin learns more about the family, including Simon's traumatic past, she begins to realize that there are still real troubles plaguing this family. There are no simple or easy answers here. Simon's past is something of a mystery--and it always remains mysterious. All of the characters are damaged, and engage in morally questionable behaviors. While the majority of the book is written in English, it's littered with Maori phrases (translated in the back) and it eschews conventions--inner monologues are set off almost as if they are block quotations, for example. These stylistic differences required attention, but were easy to get used to. In the end this book is lyrical and haunting. Winner of the 1985 Booker Prize.

The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett

This book introduces Tiffany Aching, a nine-year-old witch in training, who must save her inconvenient, sticky brother Wentworth when he is abducted by a fairy queen. Fortunately she has help--in the form of the Wee Free Men, tiny blue pictsies with amazing strength and little patience to help anyone who isn't a hag. This book was funny and heartwarming. I think I prefer the adult Discworld novels, but this one does have charms and an internal logic that works.

Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

I enjoyed listening to this book, which is about the way that an environmental anomaly makes a woman reconsider her life and the choices and options available to her. Dellarobia Turnbow, who lives on a farm in rural Tennessee with her husband and two children, wants something more than she has. At the point the story opens, she imagines this something more only in terms of a different man. But everything changes when she suddenly sees monarch butterflies on the family property. Now Dellarobia can see that what she wants might not just be a different husband, but a different life entirely--one where she can put her intelligence to use. At times I found Dellarobia to be an extremely frustrating character, but I did enjoy the path of self-discovery her character took. Barbara Kingsolver read the book herself, and she really brought the book's lyricism to life.

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis

This book tells the story of a woman's life through the viewpoints of her children--starting with the twins who died young, and ending with a granddaughter. I loved the way each viewpoint expanded the story, so we could see Hattie's many different sides and her struggle to determine her identity in the face of the demands of her family. The book was lyrical and well-plotted. I look forward to Ms. Mathis's next book.

The Lighthouse by Alison Moore

I enjoyed this book, which, like its protagonist's journey, slowly circled around to its inevitable conclusion with a steady and misleading pace. Futh, newly separated, visits Germany for a walking holiday after moving out of his family home and before he is to move into a new apartment. As he walks, he remembers his familial traumas (both with his wife and with his childhood family--which his mother abruptly left) and treasures a glass perfume bottle shaped like a lighthouse as a totem. But as Futh returns to Hellhaus (the town and the motel from which his journey started), we slowly realize that Futh, drawn like a moth to a flame, is about to be caught up in a story he never knew he was part of. Shortlisted for the 2012 Booker prize.

Umbrella by Will Self

This complicated novel uses modernist techniques (such as stream-of-consciousness narration, and three distinct narrative threads that intermingle and change with dizzying speed) in order to insist on the continued value of difficulty in reading and the continued difficulty of telling certain types of stories in more conventional ways. Fortunately for the reader, the book presents a brief précis of each time period (Audrey Death's early life to the end of World War I, her encounter with Dr. Zach Busner--who's willing to try new techniques for a certain class of patients--in a mental hospital in 1971, and Dr. Busner's reflections on his practice at that time from the vantage of his (almost contemporary with us) retirement. The book more than repaid its challenges. I particularly enjoyed the playful attention to Audrey's last name. I also thought the World War I story (with its familial betrayals) and the role Dr. Busner played in the treatment of the patients with encephalitis lethargica worked very well together to raise the questions of what we owe each other as human beings, and then to examine the consequences of failing to fulfill these duties. Shortlisted for the Booker prize in 2012.

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.