Andy Weir's THE MARTIAN soon to be Major Motion Picture with Matt Damon

The MARTIAN is a 1st novel by Andy Weir that is out of this world amazing; soon to be released on the big screen starring Matt Damon.  Weir's novel has won him the well deserved Good Reads Choice Award for Best Sci-Fi.  I am fond of the science fiction genre.  For those who shy from sci-fi, this should steer you back on course for enjoying this remarkable literary art form that does service to creativity and humanity.  Astronaut Mark Watney is part of a crew that is 1st to land on Mars.  He's  abandoned on Mars, presumed dead by his crew and will most likely become the 1st to die on this  forsaken planet.  Watney is a modern day Robinson Crusoe or Chuck Noland from the film "Cast Away."  All 3 men are marooned on inhabited territory and must fend for themselves for survival.  Watney is alone, "where no man has gone before."  Watney like his fellow fictitious heroes is resourceful, committed to survival and finds that living alone is hell (as is 70's disco.) "It hit me…I am completely alone here…there's a difference between knowing it and really experiencing it."  Mark Whatney's ingenuity is insurmountable as is his optimism and sense of humor.  He is one of the most likable and entertaining characters I have ever discovered.  This survival novel is airtight with inventiveness and astute observations on human nature. "Every human being has a basic instinct to help each other out. It may not seem that way at times, but it's true…in every culture."  Some of the physics and mathematics soared over my head. (Hopefully it may peek interest to study science, math &  physics.)   The joy from reading this novel sticks like invincible duck tape.  Don't miscalculate the immense pleasures unearthed in this ingenious & hilarious novel.  Plan A - recommend this novel, Plan B - be among the 1st to see this film blast into theaters.

Man Booker Prize Winner The Narrow Road to the Deep North by R. Flanagan

This year's Book Prize was awarded Richard Flanagan's novel.  THE NARROW ROAD.. is a  disturbingly graphic account of Australians in Japanese POW camps and a sappy love story.  The dichotomy doesn't work. We follow Dr. Dorrigo Evans from childhood to his senior years; in a nonlinear timeline.  He proves himself a man of strength & leadership during the Hellish years held captive by the Japanese during WWII.   But, on the home front, he is an unloving husband & absent father.  Dorrigo desires only what he can't have; Amy, his uncle's wife.  Amy may have been the love & pinnacle of his life. Their relationship reads like a soap opera.  His philandering & his facade of congeniality are at odds with his heroism endured under the barbaric treatment of POW's.  The book felt written by 2 authors.  One writer captured the terror & Hell of war from both the allies & enemies viewpoints.  The other writer wrote a melodramatic made for TV movie about a torrid affair & unrequited love.  There were stirring & poetic observations on being held prisoner, "Because courage, survival, love-all these things didn't live in one man.  They lived in them all or they died and everyman with them; they had to come to believe that to abandon one man was to abandon themselves."  And, the silly love story took a diametrical perspective, "One man's feeling is not always equal to all life is. Sometimes it's not equal to anything much at all."  Sometimes this novel was a masterpiece of elegance & power and sometimes maudlin drivel.  I narrowly give this a thumbs up and a thumbs pointing south on receiving the Man Booker Prize.  

Langston Huges' NOT WITHOUT LAUGHTER-Do NOT go WITHOUT Reading this Literary Masterpiece

Langston Hughes (b. Amer  1902-67) was a a brilliant novelist & poet, playwright, jazz innovator and a strong advocate for social justice.  NOT WITHOUT LAUGHTER is considered is his finest prose written in the dialect of the time.  It addresses a shameful epoch in our history from slavery, to segregation, Jim Crow south and racial suppression.  The genius of Hughes writing in is the voice of its young, central character Sandy. Sandy is born & raised in a small Kansas town into a household of women; mother, 2 aunts & his hard working grandmother, Haeger who lived as a slave. His feckless father Jimboy is a rare presence in his life.  Through Sandy's young eyes and maturing years we feel his growing sensitivity to the disparities between between blacks & whites. Sandy continually confronts imposed barriers and relentless humiliations.  The social hierarchy within the black community is also noted. We feel the crushing indignity and helplessness of Sandy & his friends when barred from the town carnival.  Aunt Harriet makes her feelings towards whites clear, "It don't matter to them if we're shut out of a job. It don't matter to them if niggers have only the back row at the movies. It don't matter to them when they hurt our feelings without caring and treat us like slaves down South and like beggars up North.  No it don't matter to them…White folks run the world…O, I hate em."  Hughes' prose captures life in the early 20th C; its heartaches & joys.  Haeger, once a slave, has the most powerful message "Honey, there ain't no room in de world fo' hate, white folks hatin' niggers, an' niggers hatin' white folks. There ain't no room in this world for nothin' but love, Sandy child. That's all they's room fo'-nothin' but love."  NOT WITHOUT LAUGHTER is a masterpiece.  It should be read alongside Twain & Ellison in schools.  This work of genius must not be overlooked.

Story Collection ALMOST FAMOUS WOMEN by Megan Bergman

ALMOST FAMOUS WOMEN is a short story collection of real women who lived in the 1st 1/2 of the 20th C in Europe & Amer.  While the historic central female in all Bergman's stories existed, they were less consequential than their more famous relative or lover.  Being in the parameters of fame lends an interesting perspective which is woven into intriguing fictitious tales.  The stories also shed light dark epochs in history:  WWI Europe & the south during Jim Crow era. This is Bergman's 2nd book of short stories.  Her debut collection BIRDS of PARADISE was honored in the Best Amer. Short Story Collection of 2011.  Her clear & courageous writing creates memorable characters.  These women are touching, tenacious, somber and mavericks for their time. We gleam something of Edna Vincent Millay's genius and austere upbringing through her b'wy actress sister Norma.  A moving tale of selfless love is framed around Lord Byron's illegitimate daughter Allegra. Byron relinquished her to a nunnery at age 4 where she soon died.  Oscar Wilde's niece, Dolly Wilde, was an ambulance drivers in WWI whose life was shattered by her war experiences.  My favorite story "Saving Butterfly McQueen," was about the actress who played Vivien Leigh's squeamish maid in GONE WITH the WIND.  She was a staunch atheist and maintained her stance amongst religious zealots in the bible belt south.  "The Internees" is a poignant story about the women liberated from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp which speaks for women & humanity.  The British soldiers opened a box of lipstick "and threw tubes of lipstick at the crowd, and we wanted it-we were surprised how badly we wanted it. We had pink wax on our rotten teeth.  We were human again. We were women."  

Ian McEwan's THE CHILDREN ACT, Another Crowning Achievement

British novelist & screenwriter Ian McEwan has received the Man Booker Prize (Amsterdam) & Oscar for (Atonement.)  He is regarded among England's most distinguished and popular contemporary writers.  His novels all vary but share his masterful & powerful writing.  In THE CHILDREN ACT, we follow Fiona Maye, a High Court judge presiding over family matters; divorces and children's welfares.  Fiona is a complex & brilliant woman.  She maintains an objectivity considering multi-points of view and brings "reasonableness to hopeless situations."  The cases she presides over are fascinating.  I compare her wisdom to King Solomon.  Not surprisingly several  prominent cases involve religious convictions and children's welfare.  In one case, a 17 yr. old has refused a life-saving blood transfusion. Fiona must determine if this is due to his parents' religious beliefs, his own and whether he can assess the consequences. McEwan calls out "doctrines of religious cult" for which children suffer or "become pointless martyr{s}." Fiona is contemplating her cases while simultaneously embroiled in marital conflict; a philandering husband.  She wonders what drives 1 partner to choose "…a younger wife, a richer or less boring husband, a different suburb, fresh sex, fresh love, a new worldview, a nice start before it's too late?  Mere pursuit of pleasure?  Moral kitsch."  I felt the overemotional ending mitigated an otherwise brilliant novel. However, McEwan's insightful views into religion, relationships & morality are commendable. The judgement resides with McEwan and I rule in favor of reading THE CHILDREN ACT.        

Dept. of Speculation- Is a Spectacular Novel

Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill is novel about a wife, her husband, her daughter and turmoils in their marriage.  Without a doubt, this delightful atypical novel is anything but banal. The artful writing is interlaced with poetry, philosophy and psychiatry tidbits.  It is engaging throughout.  Despite surmising the trials & tribulations between the wife & husband, the plot is infused with delightful art & wisdom that are surprising and appealing.  Offill's novel was shortlisted for the Best of 2014 by the NYT Book Review. The main characters are only referred to as wife & husband.  Friends, family & associates remain nameless and denoted simply: the philosopher, the sister, ex-boyfriend etc.  The universal woes of love, marriage, family are presented in a quixotic style that is beguiling. Wife refers to  poets, scientists & Zen masters alike. "Darwin theorized that there was something left over after sexual attractiveness had served its purpose.  This he called beauty and thought it might be what drives the human animal to make art."  "Zen master Ikkyu was once asked to write a distillation of the highest wisdom.  He wrote only one word:  Attention.  The visitor was displeased.  "Is that all?"  So Ikkyu obliged him.  Two words now, Attention.  Attention."  Dept. of Speculation is jammed with pathos, philosophy & delights.  There's no question why this book was noted among the 10 best of 2014.  My suggestion - read this sensational book.

Peter Godwin's Memoir of Life in Zimbabwe WHEN a CROCODILE EATS the SUN

Peter Godwin (b. S. Rhodesia 1957) is a journalist, war correspondent, contributor to the NYT & VANITY FAIR has written his memoir that spans the turbulent and violent years in  Zimbabwe under the bloody & corrupt rule of Robert Mugabe.  Godwin's family are among the minority population of white European colonists that settled in Rhodesia after WWII.  Having studied in England & having lived abroad his accounts are told through the lens of a journalist filtered with feelings for his family, home and white minority demographics.  Godwin puts his reporting into perspective "I only describe, criticize, review - I am not really a doer."  He also registers how his "little tribe of white Africans are being viewed by foreigners. "I  realize it is pity…I feel embarrassed, humiliated mortified.  I am not used to being the one pitied. I am the one who pities others."  When the civil war against white rule broke out he served in the security forces. "I was fighting on the wrong side of a losing war."  Peace was declared in 1979 and Rhodesia became Zimbabwe.  Dreams of a multi-racial, harmonious nation were demolished under 3 decades of escalating violent racial conflicts and Mugabe's oppressive, bloody rule.  Around the millenial years, white farm owners were killed; their lands appropriated.  (In 2003, J.M. Coetze won the Nobel Prize in Lit. for Disgrace about the horrific uprisings.)  Agricultural growth suffered as did the population from food shortages, rising unemployment; rampant AIDS epidemic and disease.  Still, Godwin's incisive & haunting memoir is a tour de force of account of personal & historic events written with elegance a & familial bond that makes the devastating events digestible.  In 2000, there were 2 solar eclipses.  African tribal legend has it that an eclipse of the sun occurs when a crocodile eats it.  It is the most alarming omen of furor resulting from mankind's behaviors.