Smoke: A Novel

Smoke: A Novel by Dan Vyleta, 431 pages

Vyleta's novel is set in a British boarding school, where the sons of the ruling class are taught to appear virtuous. In it, he gives us a world where sin literally shows on the sinner.  Smokes issues from the sinners body; the darker the sin, the heavier, sootier, and more noticeable the smoke. Wisps of smoke are emitted as one imagines an act, contemplates a sin, or becomes lustful, or angry. A fight between students leaves them both with darkened clothes, the stains sure to be noticed by the headmasters, with punishment to follow. The book is an interesting exploration of good and evil, arbitrary class divisions, and emotion and madness. The first half of the novel builds the world well, with interesting ideas and solid characters, but I found the end a little disappointing. Overall pretty good. It left me wanting to take a look at Vyleta's other books.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, 229 pages.
Arnold Spirit, Jr. known simply as Junior when he is on the reservation, starts out his life with a few disadvantages, he lives in poverty, he is hydrocephalic and small for his age, and he is treated cruelly by many of his neighbors and schoolmates. His best friend Rowdy, who has many of his own issues, has always stood up for Junior, but that changes when Junior takes a big chance and leaves the Res school for a better education. The boys  become rivals and their friendship seems to be on the brink of destruction.
An excellent book.
The audio was read by Sherman Alexie, and he does a wod\nderful job, but apparently the illustrations in the book itself, by artist Ellen Forney are great too.
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Jonah's Gourd Vine

Jonah’s Gourd Vine by Zora Neale Hurston, 229 pages.

We read this classic novel for our June Big Book discussion. Dr. April Langley, from the University of Missouri, Columbia, led the first discussion, and it was a lot of fun. The fifty or so readers talked about the characters in the book, mostly; with each table choosing a character with whom to identify. In the beginning of the book, the main character, John (first introduced as John Buddy) leaves the home he has lived in with his loving mother, his adoring siblings and his abusive stepfathater. He is 16, and he promises his mother that he will reform his (at this point not so) wild ways. Throughout the book he tries to be a good man, and can, in fact, be a very good man when he listens to his wife Lucy, but he cannot to seem to help but stray; he is addicted to his dalliances with other women, from Mehaly, whom he meets on his first day back at Pearson’s plantation, to the young Ora, with whom he spends his last night. John's weakness haunts him his whole life and he cannot mend the fabric of his life.
I blogged about our Wednesday night discussion in June here, and here.

Moses, Man of the Mountain by Zora Neale Hurston

Moses, Man of the Mountain by Zora Neale, 313 pages

I got to blog about this wonderful book on Wednesday night, Thursday at 3pm, and on
Friday at noon. Sure, when I blogged there it was mostly the thoughts of others, but all the blogging was filtered through my faulty listening skills, short attention span, and fondness for the snacks, so there are,by necessity, some of my thoughts in there too. I enjoyed Hurston's retelling of Exodus and parts of Leviticus (leavened with a myriad of other Moses tales from around the world) immensely. It seemed to be a very quick read. I don't know if I enjoyed it more than June's selection, Jonah's Gourd Vine, since it was so different. Hurston is an amazing writer and the discussions were great.

Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Svetlana Alexievich, 470 pages.

Alexievich, the winner for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2015, talked to people  all over Russia and in the former Soviet republics and recorded their stories. The stories come quickly, with the shifting of voice indicated sometimes with a simple dash. Everyone is upset about the changes in their lives, and how one feels about the changes in the availability of salami is a indicator of their level of hope for the future.
There are a host of grim stories here; reminiscences from the times of Stalin and the Gulag, as well as more recent accounts of rape, murder, and beatings during the wars, armed conflicts, uprisings, massacres, and other violent interactions in Chechnya, Armenia, Azerbijan, Georgia, Belarus, and other regions.
People tell Aexievich of their loss of identity, their economic dislocation, and the trauma they have experienced during the end of the Soviet era and into the present. A surprising number of people tell of their wish that communism, especially that strain found during the era of Stalin would return. Knowing that there was only one set of truths, believing that your country was great (and single-handedly defeated Hitler), and knowing that your neighbors suffering was on par with your own seems worth the price of freedom and possible failure. Everywhere the men drink and lash out at strangers, the vulnerable, and their families. The women and children, the elderly, and anyone living in a land not decidedly their own suffers horribly.
Fascinating, grim, and sad.

The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain

The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain by Bill Bryson, 380 pages.

Bryson reflects on and follows his classic 1993 Notes from a Small Island with an updated tour of Great Britain. I've read several of Bryson's books before, A Brief History of Nearly Everything, Home, and The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, but I haven't read any of his other travel books, and I don't remember him being this funny. He is really funny in The Road, in an updated, profane, Andy Rooney sort of way. His imagined dialogues with shop clerks, barkeeps and hoteliers are evil and sharp and funny. Sometimes he seems a little whiny, or self-indulgent, but then he realizes it and makes fun of that too, and it's all better.
He rips into the English (or at least certain English) for their peculiarities, their foibles, and their lack of a sense of humor (though his family and the staff of at least one McDonalds don't seem to get him either), but he does proclaim his love for his adopted home and its inhabitants. Published a year or so before the Brexit vote, it will be interesting to read his take on that, and see his adjustment on his take on the xenophobia of the English. A very fun read, and the audio is well read and features a bonus song, "The Bryson Line," which includes the line, "Great Britain is great, let's not be pedantic, the North Sea's in the east, the Irish Sea's the Atlantic".

The Orchid Boat: Women Poets of China

The Orchid Boat: Women Poets of China edited and translated by Kenneth Rexroth and Ling Chung, 150 pages.

In this collection Rexroth presents poems of love and loss, contemplative poems and even some by Chao Luan-Luan (from sometime around the 8th century) that were advertisements for the services of courtesans. All of them were written by women poets; the oldest, "A Song of Magpies" by Lady Ho, who lived somewhere 300 BCE, and the most recent were from poets who were still alive in 1973 when the book was first published. Li Ch'ing-chao, said by the editors to be "universally considered tobe China's greatest woman poet. . ." figures prominently in this volume.
In "Spring Ends," a poem mourning the passing of a loved one, she says:

The wind stops.

Nothing is left of Spring but fragrant dust. 

Although it is late in  the day,

I have been too exhausted to comb my hair. 

Our furniture is just the same,

But he no longer exists.

I am unable to do anything at all,

Before I can speak my tears choke me.

I hear that Spring at Two Rivers

Is still beautiful.

I had hoped to take a boat there,,

But I am afraid my little boat

Is too small to ever reach Two Rivers, 

Laden with my heavy sorrow.

Many of the modern poets, perhaps unsurprisingly given the time of publication, seem to be from Taiwan.
As with other similar Rexroth titles, 100 Poems from the Chinese, and Love and the Turning Year, the biographical essays about the poets add tremendously to the book.A lovely collection.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling

My favorite in the series (or maybe the last one, Deathly Hallows, is better. Hard to say). The book in which Dumbledore first mentions, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione begin to understand the importance of, horcruxes. And the book in which the relationships between Ron and Hermione, and Harry and Ginny first become apparent to them. As the book progresses, and the things are building to a climax, Harry commits an act that would have been murder had things gone a little differently. His has some twinges of conscience about this near-killing, but still seems more concerned about the resulting detentions than about the act that caused him to miss a Quiddich match. He's not a perfect characterThe end of the book lets the reader know that no matter what happens in the final book this won’t be a case of “everything is going to be alright”. The movie version, wherein Harry stands by and watches the killing of a person close to him, not intervening because he promised, always seemed much weaker than the original. In the book Harry is petrified by a spell that is only broken once the murder is committed, and that seems more true to character.