The Hall of Uselessness, by Simon Leys

Great collection of essays from an author whom I think is one of the best essayists ever!  The topics in this collection are wide ranging, from literature to China to history to the sea.  My favorites were the ones on Chinese art and history (a subject I know little about, so I learned a lot reading them), and the ones on Cervantes, Victor Hugo, and Magellan.  Included in this collection is the one where he (rightfully, in my opinion) excoriates Christopher Hitchens's negative comments about Mother Teresa.

Le bonheur des petits poissons, by Simon Leys

Une très bonne collection par un essayiste cultivé et subtil. C'est le premier livre de Simon Leys que j'ai jamais lu et je vais définitivement lire plus. J'aurais préféré une collection un peu plus grande; le livre est beaucoup plus mince que j'attendais. J'aime bien L'empire du laid, Les mensonges qui disent la vérité, et Du goût.

The Wreck of the Batavia, Prosper, by Simon Leys

<i>The Wreck of the Batavia</i> is a fascinating and concise account of a shipwreck on the Australian coast in the 1600's. The crew and passengers become a little society onto themselves. Once the small contingent of soldiers (whom you might say are the representatives of law and order on the ship) go on an expedition to find drinking water, and the top ranking officers leave to get help at the Dutch East India Company offices in Java, the rest of the passengers fall into the hands of a charismatic psychopath and his small band of mutineers. It is like an eerie glimpse, 300 years too early, on a tiny scale, of the totalitarian governments of the 20th century.  Perhaps there are always such destructive, nihilistic personalities to be found in every generation; it just takes the right combination of conditions to raise them to positions of leadership. I could not put this one down; read it in one night and went to work bleary-eyed the next morning.

<i>Prosper</i> is Leys's nostalgic account of a summer spent aboard the last sailing tuna fishing boat.  His descriptions of that life are vivid and entertaining.  Very welcome relief from the violent story preceding.