Recently I was looking at different inserts to put in my planner for this year and I came upon the PBS Great Reads list. Viewers voted on their favorite book, resulting in a varied selection that showcased the diversity of America. As I looked over the list, I was happy to see how many of the novels I had read. The list included such classics as Gone with the Wind, Charlotte’s Web, the Lord of the Rings series, Pride and Prejudice, Frankenstein, Catch 22… My plans are to print out the list and mark off as many as I can.
(The number one book? The 1961 Pulitzer Prize winner To Kill a Mockingbird, of course. Makes me proud that a novel by a fellow Alabamian Harper Lee tops the chart.)
I noticed #61 on the list – The Martian by Andy Weir, I loved this book so much! This was a case of seeing the movie first, so imagining Matt Damon running around on the surface of Mars wasn’t hard to do. This made me remember a book review I did several years ago on another blog Jennifer was involved with, so I am taking this opportunity to once again recommend The Martian. There is technical jargon and science in abundance, but it doesn’t weigh down the story. You are totally invested in the main character Mark Watney and his journey.
From a previous blog
Have you ever had a bad day at work? Alarm clock doesn’t ring, you are late, your boss yells at you, the coffee is cold. Just imagine if you are Mark Watney, the lead character of Andy Weir’s book, The Martian. Mark wakes up to find himself impaled by an antenna, running out of oxygen, and he is stranded on Mars with no radio communication. Did I mention Mark is a US astronaut? Due to an unfortunate accident, his team believes he is dead and they are forced to evacuate the planet without him. A manned exploration crew will be back on Mars in four years. He just has to figure out how to stay alive till then. The book is set up as Mark recording his story. Even if he doesn’t make it, NASA can recover his logs and will know what happened. Weir infuses the book with humor, hope, and inventiveness. A good portion of the text is the technological aspect of his job, but it is presented in layman’s terms. You root for Mark the whole way, with tears, laughter, and tension. Warning: this book does contain some profanity.
FROM AMAZON _Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read
Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.
Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there.
After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.
Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old “human error” are much more likely to kill him first.
But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?
