The Falls - Ian Rankin

Another good work, but not of his more recent I suspect, as the political and social commentary is not as clearly present.

Set in Darkness - Ian Rankin

Yet another Rebus mystery.  An earlier work I suspect.  Characters are there, well-developed and articulated.  Edinburgh's looming presence and history there in the background.  A good plot with lots of meanderings.  What is missing is the political and social cr.iticism that you see in some of his more recent work.
Still a good read

Arsène Lupin - Maurice LeBlanc

Une longue série d'histoires basée sur le personnage Arsène Lupin.  Essentiellement des mystères.   Lupin est le vrai centre de toutes les histoires - il est criminel, mais dans le genre "Robin Hood".  Il fait du bien mais n'hésite pas a s'enrichir lui-même si l'occasion se présente.   Lupin est intelligent avec beaucoup d'esprit, finesse et une code morale qui sait s'adapter aux complexités de la vie.  Essentiellement un Sherlock Holmes à la française.
Il y a même certaines histoires où il est question de se moquer de Sherlock Holmes qui se prend très au sérieux, qui n'a aucune subtilité en face de la vie, qui est lourd et litéraliste.

Lecture très amusante.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress - Dai Sijie

A short novel set in China during the Cultural Revolution.  It focuses on two city teens who have been sent for reeducation to a remote, backwards mountain village.  It basically sets the lie to the Cultural Revolution and the re-edcuation process.  You see peasants who submit.  You see educated people maintaing there sense of self in hidden, secret ways.  You see the cadres fulfilling the role of petty dictators in love with their power.
The seamstress is a young girls that the boys introduce to a collection of forbidden Balzac novels, through storytelling.  This is the only real re-education that takes place in the book.

The book is a study of the importance of literature and even of storytelling, as the boys become the village storytellers in several contexts.  It shows how literature serves to develop and keep alive a sense of self, of the personal, in a sea of propaganda and mass culture.

Very well-written, spare storytelling.