Monthly Archives: April 2014

Biking the Coast

My husband and I leave tomorrow for a bike trip along British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast and Vancouver Island. Rain or shine, we will be out pedaling and seeing the sights. The ride is organized by our local bike club and 15 people will be cycling the route. Needless to say we are quite excited for this adventure.

It’s definitely a neat part of the world. Have you ever been? Here’s a map of some of the places we will be going.

Although at this time of year “the Sunshine Coast” might get more rain than sunshine, we have plenty of rain gear to wear along the way. We’re prepared for wet conditions as long as there’s not a deluge of Noah’s Ark proportions.

I figure if the landscape is green, mossy, and overcast, it’ll likely be good reading weather at the end of each day. I’m bringing along a 2010 novel that my book club picked to discuss in May titled “Annabel” by Kathleen Winter.

She’s a Canadian author, and the novel is about an intersex child who’s raised as a male but whose shadow-self — he thinks of as Annabel — is never entirely extinguished. “Annabel” was shortlisted for both the Giller Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction. So I think it’ll be quite good.

Perhaps it will have similar themes to Jeffrey Eugenides’s 2002 Pulitzer prize-winning novel “Middlesex,” which I still need to read, especially since I enjoyed his 2011 novel “The Marriage Plot.”

Anyways, I’ll chat more once I get back. Until then, happy reading and happy adventures! Continue reading

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The Martian

Is this book cover cool or what? Kudos to Eric White, its creator. I was lured to this sci-fi novel because of all the good words going on about it on blogs and book sites. It’s been quite the success story. First the author Andy Weir self-published “The Martian” on his website for free in 2012, then he put it on Kindle for 99 cents, and later it was picked up by Crown publisher for six figures and put out again in February of this year. The movie rights for it have already been optioned, and Matt Damon is being rumored for the main role. Wow! Not bad for a first-time author.

Truth be told, I’m not normally a science fiction or space reader, but the synopsis caught my eye. It’s about an astronaut (Mark Watney) whose crew is on a mission on Mars when a violent dust storm hits. Watney’s suit is pierced and he’s flung unconscious out of the crew’s reach. Thinking he’s dead, the others lift off, ending their mission and stranding Watney behind with no way to signal Earth that he’s alive.

Holy smokes, it’s a bleak situation, but Watney’s no quitter. He puts his mind to work on how to survive and reconnect with NASA. And here I thought Robert Redford’s character in the recent movie “All Is Lost” was resourceful, but in that regard Watney leaves him in the dust (so to speak). Watney’s quite the engineer-astronaut-botanist phenomenon. He’s a math-physics nerd but a smart-ass too. He’s got gumption, which apparently doesn’t hurt if you’re left on a totally inhospitable red planet.

“The Martian” drew me in at the start. I absorbed the dire situation as if it were the missing Malaysian airliner whose puzzle needed to be solved. Where in the heck is it? And what would happen to Watney? Being a reader of epic Arctic and Everest survival tales, I pored over this one like a bat out of hell.

Some of the novel takes place on Earth within NASA as they grope with what to do, the other half takes place on Mars as the resourceful Watney tries to overcome his circumstances. It makes for an interesting back and forth.

“The Martian” though is loaded with technical details, which in my opinion gets excessive at times. It’s almost as if the author were adding all the equations and physics suppositions to show how smart he is. On the one hand, it’s great having a lot of scientific details in the novel to make it seem real, but the constant equation set-ups clogged it up at times. In places, it sort of felt like reading a textbook instead of an action thriller. My mind fuzzed over some of the scientific and math thought processes, and the middle of the book sagged for me, as Watney carried out a lot of tests for his proposed rescue plans. No wonder I gave this book to my husband to read first; he’s an engineer he probably liked all these endless details.

But luckily “The Martian” picks up towards the end. And how it all plays out is worth sticking around for. I imagine the movie of it could be quite riveting. Despite the excessive details, I’m still amazed about the author’s knowledge of space and that he made “The Martian” into such a believable tale. It might not be for everybody, but if you’re a nerdy fan of the final frontier and such, you’ll inevitably like this one, too. Continue reading

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A Preview of April Releases

April is already racing by so I’m putting out my picks pronto for this month. But before I do that, I wanted to say how sorry I was to hear that author Peter Matthiessen had recently died, and right before his latest novel “In Paradise” was due out. Ugh what a great writer, especially on topics about the natural world. I recall reading his nonfiction book “The Snow Leopard” in my twenties and being quite moved by it. If you get a chance, check it out along with his others. Have you read any of his books? And what did you think?

For April, there seems to be a number of good novels coming out (see list at right). I’m drawn to read “The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry” by Gabrielle Zevin about a bookstore owner on Alice Island (a fictional Martha’s Vineyard), who goes through a transformation of sorts, and redemption. Booklist says the novel’s also an homage to bookstores that “perfectly captures the joy of connecting people and books.” As a former indie bookstore employee, I can’t resist this new well-regarded novel that touches on the ins and outs of bookselling.

Meanwhile, “Be Safe I Love You” by Cara Hoffman is my edgier pick for April about the troubled homecoming of a female U.S. soldier who returns from a tour of duty in Iraq in time to spend the holidays with her family. All appears fine, as she offers to take her brother on a trip to visit their mother in upstate New York, but they wind up traveling to Canada instead. Library Journal calls the novel a searing tale of the “corrosive effects of war on the psyche,” and Ms. magazine says it’s “a riveting suspense story.” So I hope not to miss it.

Lastly I’m curious about Ayelet Waldman’s novel “Love and Treasure,” which weaves a story around the true history of the Hungarian Gold Train in WWII. Apparently the train carried a trove of stolen goods taken from Jews in Hungary and was bound for Germany when Allied soldiers intercepted it. Some of the trove was then re-stolen. The Boston Globe says the “book’s best moments explore subtle ambiguities … the human stories behind the looted objects flicker into life.” I haven’t read Waldman before but have heard good things about her books so I think I should give this one a try.

For movies in April (see list at left), I’m interested in seeing “The Railway Man,” which is based on the book by Eric Lomax, a British Army officer who was sent to a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in 1942. Years after the war, Lomax set out to confront the man responsible for his torture there, which the movie explores. It stars Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman, which isn’t too shabby. I’ll likely see it if comes out around here.

Another film I’ll likely see is “Hateship, Loveship,” which is based on the Alice Munro short story. Holy smokes I didn’t know this was in the works. It looks like a quaint love story among outsiders, starring Kristen Wiig and Guy Pierce. You can’t go wrong there.

Even Nicolas Cage’s new movie “Joe,” which is based on the novel by Larry Brown, looks to be pretty good. It’s about an ex-con who helps a 15-year-old boy in a rough situation. The trailer reminded me slightly of the movie “Mud,” which I liked quite a bit, so I think I’ll see this one, too.

Lastly for albums in April (see list at bottom right), I plan to check out Joan Osborne’s “Love and Hate.” She’s always had a great sultry voice so I think there will be some songs worth checking out.

How about you — which new books, movies, or albums out this month are you most looking forward to? Continue reading

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