15. Judith Newman, To Siri With Love
I finished this a while ago, but have put off adding it here because I've been struggling to put into words how I feel about it. Newman chronicles a year in the life of her New York-based family - and in particular, her son Gus, who has autism (his twin Henry does not). When the book opens, Gus and Henry are 13, and the differences between them have become pronounced: Henry is starting to think about girls and sex, and has a lucrative side hustle playing poker with his schoolmates; Gus, on the other hand, still watches children's cartoons, struggles to tie his own shoelaces, and apparently has no understanding where babies come from, let alone about sex and relationships. The book is less a diary than a series of essays (perhaps because of Newman's background as a journalist), each considering an aspect of Gus's life and Newman's efforts to understand him and his differences from the rest of his family. She does this really well, with a rather dry, self-deprecating humour.
My own son (who is a few years younger than Gus) was diagnosed with autism about a year ago, and much of the ground covered here will be familiar to any parent of a child with autism: the social difficulties, the quirky interests and obsessions, the black and white thinking and so on. Despite this, I was struck by how unfamiliar a lot of this seemed and how little it resonated with me: this is partly because, as the saying goes, "if you've met one child with autism, you've met one child with autism" 
, and partly because my son has an atypical form of ASC that means he doesn't struggle with some of the "stereotypical" traits as much as Gus evidently does. Also, I realised about halfway through that of course Newman's story is going to resonate with me more than Gus's - that's because we're both parents and we both share the same hopes and fears and (sometimes very dark) thoughts about our situations. So, if nothing else, this book has made me determined to read more by authors who have autism themselves, and not just by parents looking at it from the outside (no matter how caring they are).
The other big issue with this book - and something that led to calls for its boycott - is that Newman is often brutally honest about her thoughts and feelings, sometimes saying things that are unpalatable to the listener (and, I imagine, especially difficult to hear for anyone who has autism). She worries openly about how Gus will cope when she and her husband are dead, about whether he will ever manage to get a job and lead an independent life, and - most controversially - about whether he will (or should) have a relationship and perhaps even have children. This leads her into some very dangerous territory: at one point, she muses about whether she should get medical power of attorney when Gus is 18, so she can ensure that he has a vasectomy to prevent him from becoming a father (a job that she is certain he will do badly). Obviously, there is a lot wrong with this train of thought! - and Newman does acknowledge this herself, discussing the terrible history of eugenics and forced sterilisation that have been used against disabled people - but I do understand where it has come from 
. And I do think that Newman is brave for even voicing some of these thoughts: as a parent of a disabled child, you often feel forced into a role of saintly tolerance and chirpy optimism, which leaves you no room to express your fears (and you feel disloyal if you do). It actually left me very glad that my son lives in the UK, where he has access to high-quality, inclusive education, and where eccentricity seems to be better tolerated (at least, if you are relatively high-functioning).
16. Jonathan Stroud, The Screaming Staircase
First in a series of books about Lockwood and Co., one of a number of psychic investigation agencies set up to tackle "The Problem" - a surfeit of ghosts and other supernatural phenomena that have plagued the country for the last 40 years. The agencies employ children to do the actual ghost-quelling, because adults are no longer sensitive to the sounds and death glows that make the ghosts detectable. Anthony Lockwood, Lucy Carlyle and George Cubbins operate a somewhat ramshackle company that is put under threat when they accidentally burn a client's house to the ground by deploying a canister of Greek Fire in a paper-filled study. The iron magnate John Fairfax comes to their financial rescue by offering them £60,000 if they will spend the night in his lavishly haunted country pile ... but is all as it seems? (No.) Along the way, the team solve a 60-year old murder, lay some very old ghosts to rest and have a lot of fun running around the haunted building, waving their rapiers around and deploying salt bombs. This is not the most complex novel ever (I solved the puzzle in full, including cracking the mysterious code, when I was 63% through), but the dialogue fizzes with jokes and the milieu is well-thought out and intriguing, so I didn't really mind.
17. Jonathan Coe, 9th and 13th
This is a bit of a swiz, really, as it's such a short book (60-odd pages)! It's one of the 70 Pocket Penguin books that were published to celebrate the publisher's 70th birthday. This one brings together Coe's entire short story output (3 stories!), plus an essay about his obsession with the Billy Wilder film "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes". I agree with Coe that he is better in a more expansive form, but these stories are still very enjoyable, and many of his hallmarks - from the film obsessions to the weird and slightly creepy family relationships.