'Coraline & Other Stories' by Neil Gaiman (27/52)

Coraline Jones has moved house. Well, perhaps not house. She's moved from house to apartment, and days into her family's stay there, she encounters a secret passage that leads her to her other family - mother and father, with buttons for eyes. Coraline loves the attention, but things take a turn for the sinister faster than she'd like, and she finds herself on an adventure that may cost her more than her life.

There's a lot to like in this collection of stories from Neil Gaiman. From the recently (awesomely) stop-motion-adapted, Coraline, to the months sharing stories in October in the Chair. It's a tight collection, and one that orbits themes that are prevalent in a lot of Gaiman's writing - children bearing burdens and magical seductions turning sinister, and strange people turning oddly wonderful. It works so well here too, particularly in the stories mentioned above. It helps that Gaiman. at his best, is so funny too. Some of the lines in Coraline made me laugh aloud, and it's been a long time a book has made me do that.

Four out of five soul catching marbles.