What I'll remember from this December: the weather was gorgeous, almost obscenely so. The only truly awful day was the exact one I needed to fly out for Christmas with the family. Flight canceled, obviously. Because that's how it works.

"He demanded memories, too young to know that memories were only memories of memories." Who was Cecil Valance, really? Young aristocratic poet, dead in the Great War. That's the question haunting everyone in this book.

Laura keeps having the same dream: a threatening house full of mist, pulling her in while scaring her to death. The Lady of Shalott references everywhere. Dreams, fog, Victorian England, Gothic atmosphere.

The Raven is the hero of a cheap pulp serial and he's pissed about the adventures his creator gives him. He wants to be absolute Evil. A literary myth. So he breaks out of the "world of the imagined" and takes matters into his own hands.

Joe lives on a North Dakota reservation. His father's a judge, his mother works vital records. Stable family, happy, relatively well-off. Rare on the rez. Then one spring Sunday, everything shatters.

November flew by. Only 30 days, and I got caught off guard. Exhibitions: Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera at the Musée de l'Orangerie. First time really meeting this mythical artist couple. Worth the hype.

Pierre Ubik, successful sci-fi novelist, flees to a small Breton village to escape the media circus. There he meets Lucie, a young woman who recently lost her sight. Walking paths. Silence. Finding your way.

Djian's been writing songs for Stéphane Eicher for years. Now he steps into a famous musician's skin. Daniel's fifty-three, at his career peak. Millions of albums sold, thousands of concerts. Then everything starts cracking.

"Would I have been this frightened if Lindbergh wasn't president, or if I wasn't born into a Jewish family?" 1940. Young Philip Roth is seven, collecting stamps, admiring Roosevelt. Then Lindbergh wins. Alternate history that feels too real.

Ajatashatru Lavash Patel, fakir, lands in Paris from Rajasthan for one errand: buy a bed of nails at IKEA. No IKEA stores in India, apparently. Things go sideways. The title tells you exactly what happens. Pure comedy.