Wordstock is Here!

This weekend is Wordstock, Portland's annual book and literary festival, a showcase for contemporary writers.

I am excited to be on a panel tomorrow, along with a couple of other book bloggers, to discuss the role of bloggers in the writing community.  It is going to be a lot of fun.

I also hope to see some of the other panels and readings by some of the "Spotlight" authors. 

Book Beginnings: Krakatoa

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name.

TWITTER: If you are on Twitter, please tweet a link to your post using the has tag #BookBeginnings. My Twitter handle is @GilionDumas.

MR. LINKY: Please leave a link to your post below. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.



MY BOOK BEGINNING

 

Though we think first of Java as an eponym for coffee (or, to some today, a computer language), it is in fact the trading of aromatic tropical spices on which the fortunes of the great island's colonizers and Western discoverers were first founded. 

 -- Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 by Simon Winchester. Even though I've had this book on my TBR shelf forever, I am listening to the audio version from the library because it is read by Winchester himself. He is such a favorite of mine and I preferred to have him read to me than read this one with my eyes.

Review: The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club

When a venerable member of the Bellona Club is found dead in a wingback chair, Bellona member, Lord Peter Wimsey, is called in to make some discreet inquiries into the time of his death. The inheritance of a large fortune depends on just when the old fellow shuffled off.

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club finds Lord Peter at the top of his game, always urbane and witty as he unravels a series of knotty clues and evaluates myriad suspects. There are many moving parts to the puzzle, but Lord Peter and his technologically savvy butler Bunter never lose their cool, right up to the surprisingly dark ending.

OTHER REVIEWS

My review of Clouds of Witness is here.

If you would like your review of this or any other of Dorothy L. Sayers book listed here, please leave a comment with a link.

NOTES

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, first published in 1928, is Dorothy L. Sayers' fourth book in the Lord Peter Wimsey series. It was one of my Golden Age Girls choices for the Vintage Mystery Challenge, hosted by Bev at My Reader's Block.

Teaser Tuesday: Boys Don't Tell

 








 

. . . I had always felt that people should put problems of youth, including abuse, behind them. Big deal. Get over it. Move on. Right? Wrong! Until we can open that box and shed light on the abuse, we don't have a clue as to its impact.

-- Boys Don't Tell: Ending the Silence of Abuse by Randy Ellison (emphasis in original). This is the author's own story of a life messed up by childhood sexual abuse at the hands of his minister and how he healed by coming forward and confronting the church.  It is an honest and moving account that includes prose and poetry.

Randy is now a strong advocate for abuse survivors, working on his own and with the wonderful organization OAASIS. 


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event. 

Review: The Comedians

 

François "Papa Doc" Duvalier and his secret police, the Tonton Macoute, ruled Haiti from his election in 1957 until his death in 1971. As tin pot dictators go, Papa Doc was particularly repressive, using bribery, extortion, and confiscation to enrich his cohorts; crippling the country by causing a mass exodus of educated professionals; and killing as many as 30,000 of his countrymen.

In The Comedians, Graham Greene tells the story of Papa Doc’s ascendency from the perspective of three foreigners: narrator Brown, owner of a once-chic ex-pat hotel in Port-au-Prince; former US Presidential candidate Smith, in Haiti with his formidable wife to open an institute of vegetarianism; and third rate mercenary Jones, hoping his fabricated credentials will earn him fame and fortune on one side of the conflict or the other.

Brown, Smith, and Jones are the comedians of the title, but only in the older sense of the word comedy as political satire or a work that emphasizes the ridiculous and the absurd in human life. There is humor in the book – the whole bit, for example, about Smith running for President on a vegetarian ticket is an ongoing and funny gag. But the humor is often dark, as when Smith doesn’t understand that there is no need to teach Haitians the benefits of a vegetarian diet since they cannot afford meat.

Although Greene keeps the tone light and the story moves along at a steady clip, there is a sad inevitability to it. Local leaders die, opposition is crushed, and the lucky flee. Brown’s love affair with a diplomat’s wife founders in the turmoil. The grand plans of Smith, Jones, and Brown all crumble against Pap Doc’s corrupt political and military might. Contrary to comedies of old, there is no happy ending, but The Comedians is a story of history on a human scale that will grip the reader’s attention to the very last page.

OTHER REVIEWS

1966 New York Times review of The Comedians

If you would like your review of this or any other Graham Greene book listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it. 

NOTES

I read The Comedians for several challenges, most obviously the Graham Greene Reading Challenge hosted by the Carrie at Books and Movies, but also the Birth Year Reading Challenge on Hotchpot Cafe, the Books Published in the First years of My Life Challenge hosted by Emma at Words and Peace, the Mt. TBR Challenge on My Reader's Block, the Off the Shelf Challenge on Bookish Ardour, and the TBR Pile Challenge hosted by Adam at Roof Beam Reader.