Andy Weir

Fiction 2011 / 376 pages

When a freak dust storm brings a six-person 31-day mission to Mars to an unexpected close, an astronaut who is left behind fights to stay alive.  One minute, astronaut Mark Watney was with his crew, struggling to make it out of the deadly Martian dust storm and back to the ship, currently in orbit over Mars. The next minute, he was gone, blown away, with an antenna sticking out of his side. The crew knew he'd lost pressure in his suit, and they'd seen his biosigns go flat. In grave danger themselves, they made an agonizing but logical decision: Figuring Mark was dead, they took off and headed back to Earth.

As it happens, though, Mark is very much alive. He wakes up some time later to find himself stranded on Mars with a limited supply of food and no way to communicate with Earth or his fellow astronauts. And he is not ready to give up!  Luckily, Mark is a botanist and a mechanical engineer as well as an astronaut. So, armed with a few potatoes, he becomes Mars' first ever farmer. And the person person to live alone on the planet.  And the longest living human on Mars, hundreds of "sols" longer than anyone else (a "sol" is a Martian day, which is 39 minutes longer than an earth day).  Mark must overcome a series of increasingly tricky mental, physical, emotional, and technical challenges just to stay alive, until finally, he realizes there is just a glimmer of hope that he may actually be rescued. (I stole this review quite liberally from a Goodreads reviewer.  She did such a fine job!)

While Weir writes to the lay audience, I still found the technical details of CO2, hydrazine, airlocks, water reclaimers, electrical connections, RTGs, rovers, fuel plant compressors, a Hab, and many tools, mathematical equations, hypotheses, and test-runs a little overwhelming intellectually.  Still, the author’s ingenuity in finding new scrapes to put Mark in, not to mention the ingenuity in finding ways out of said scrapes, is impressive.

But the technical story is interspersed with the human side, as we learn what is happening at NASA, especially when a low-level staffer, Mindy Parks, discovers that Mark is still alive, shortly after his funeral.

Mark Watney is not only brilliant, he is also an amazing optimist, and unwaveringly funny.  His humor contributes significantly to the pleasure of this book and often cuts the tension.  It is also an essential component of his survival and makes him easy to relate to.

Andy Weir did a great job with his first novel, which was actually created chapter by chapter on his blog.  And then it sold for a movie!  Good job, Mr. Weir!  Yes, I recommend The Martian.

This is on the Goodreads list, top rating, for 2011.

April 2025

Dorothy Sayers  |  Fiction

1935, 544 pages

This book begins with our main character, Harriet Vine, attending Gaudy Night, which is a weekend gathering at her former college.  All that occurs is conversation after conversation with other women in attendance, some of whom Harriet remembers, and some whom she does not.  It is as exciting as any conversation at a school reunion ... NOT.  But then, at the end of Chapter 3, something occurs to entice us into thinking that there really will be a mystery to be solved, and some tension begins to build.

Reviewers say it is best to read the Harriet Vine books in order:

• Strong Poison (1930)
• Have His Carcase (1932)
• Gaudy Night (1935)
• Busman's Honeymoon (1937) (As Lady Peter Wimsey)

Had I read these in order, this may have helped me not confuse Peter Wimsey, Harriet's co-investigator into crimes, with Phillip Boyes, Harriet's ex-lover, whom she was accused (and acquitted) of murdering with arsenic.

I made it to chapter four, but that is all I could abide.  I don't recommend Gaudy Night, but then, if you read this series in order, you might enjoy it.

(I am reading some books from a delightful list ... the highest rated books by Goodreads reviewers for the last 100 years.  I have already read 54 of them, to the best of my recollection, and have pulled out another dozen or so from this list to read now.  This is my first selection, the highest rated book in 1935).

April 2025

Anne Tyler

Fiction 2025 | 176 pages

BORING!

Here, in San Jose del Cabo, there is no swimming ... the beach is black-flagged as unsafe.  But you certainly can do a beach walk, as we have done every day.  The surf breaks about 30 feet out, and it is shallow only that far ... maybe 30 or 40 feet.

"Shallow' is the operative word in the last sentence.  This book is shallow.  The plot, if it exists, is shallow, and the characters are interminably shallow. Three Days in June is 61-year-old Gail's story ... the day before her daughter Debbie's wedding, the wedding day, and the day after.

IMHO, a terrible and boring book.  I do not recommend you waste your time.

April 2025

Ritu Mukerji

Mystery Fiction 2022 | 287 pages

It is 1875 in Philadelphia and the recently established Women's Medical College is the employer of our main character, Dr. Lydia Weston, where she is a Professor of Medicine as well as an attending physician.  Of course, women physicians are rare at this time, suspect, held as incredulous, disrespected.  When a patient of Dr. Weston's, Anna, goes missing and then is believed to be found dead, Lydia becomes an invaluable source of information to the detectives working the case.

On page 150, a twist occurs that I did not see coming!

I love Dr. Weston, and her bright, smart, snappy, assertive personality.  I keep wanting to see what realization or insight she would find next.

This is the Deschutes Public Library community read for 2025 and, therefore, has nothing offensive in it and is a bit saccharin.  But/and I found it an enjoyable mystery, imbued with feminist sensibilities.

I recommend it for a fun, pleasurable, easy read.

April 2025

Tim O'Brien

Historical Fiction 1990 | 233 pages

Wow.  I can't believe it took me this many years to get around to reading this book. The Things They Carried is a powerful book written by a Vietnam Vet, Tim O'Brien.  He mixes true stories with fictionalized stories and speaks directly to his readers a few times.

The things they carried included, of course, new testaments and pictures of girlfriends back home, but also grandpa's hatchet, comic books, statuettes of the Smiling Buddha, ghosts, expectations of their parents, fear, anger, joy, excitement, a starlight scope, moccasins, a pebble.

They also carried weapons, ammunition, grenades, C-Rations, knives, and flashlights. Depending upon their jobs, they might carry morphine and bandages, or a satellite radio, or code books.

We learn about many of the platoon members ... who they are, and, in some cases, how they died.  We learn about what veterans carry after they leave Vietnam forever, including guilt and sorrow. And lifelong friendships.  This is a short read, but not an easy read.  It took me just a day to read it.  Having recently read The Women, it gives me yet another perspective on the atrocious war in Vietnam.

The chapter "On the Rainy River" must be one of the best pieces of writing I have ever read.

This book will move you and not easily be forgotten.  Yes, it should be read by all of us.

April 2025

Alice Hoffman

Fiction 2005/ 331 pages

The Ice Queen seems like an intriguing story, but then, near the end of it, the depth of the story and the characters and their relationships really come to fruition.  I cried in the closing pages.

The ice queen herself is the narrator, and we never know her name in this first-person novel.  She is struck by lightning at her home in New Jersey and turns cold.  I don’t mean emotionally (though that is a battle she faces, too), but the “effects” of the lightning strike on her include the loss of mobility on her left side, an inability to see the color red, and a body that is ice cold, that needs to take ice baths.

Afterwards, her brother Ned convinces her to move to Florida which, as it turns out, is the lightning-strike capital of the country, and she enters a study of lightning-strike survivors.  There she meets her friend Remy and her lover Lazarus (his real name is Seth, but after being dead for nearly an hour after his unique lightning strike, he earns a new nickname). Lazarus has a variety of different “effects,” but he is in many ways the opposite of our woman.  He is literally burning hot.  Sex happens in a bathtub of ice, and ice is necessary to cool off her intimate parts afterwards.

There is also some magic in the book, as the main character believes she has the power to wish something into existence.  This is solidly formed in her when, as a child of 8, she, in anger, wishes that her mother will never come back when mom goes out to celebrate her birthday, and her wish comes true.

The description of lightning strike “effects” is fascinating.  There are many different types of strikes, it turns out, which have many different effects on the victim’s body and psyche.  We follow the narrator’s story into her partial recovery, as well as what happens to Remy and Lazarus.  I was surprised at how much, near the end, we follow the narrator’s relationship with her brother Ned and sister-in-law Nina, as the narrator finally learns what love really is.

This is an odd book, and I am having trouble both rating it and deciding whether or not to recommend it.  It is an engaging read … I read it quickly.  I have landed on recommending it, knowing it is an unusual read.

April 2025

Isabel Cañas

Historical Novel 2023 | 384 pages

As the novel opens, Nena and Nestor are 13 the best of friends.  Nena is the daughter of the owner of a Rancho; Nestor a Vaquero ... a class difference that is insurmountable in 1837 Mexico, where family and caste and economic/social status are firmly established.  One summer night, Nena and Nestor meet to search for buried silver, and a beast attacks Nena.  The beast emits a venom into her neck, which makes her appear, by all counts, dead.  After Nestor carries her back to her home, her Mama, Papa, and Abuela declare her dead.  Nestor bolts out the door in grief, shame, and fear, knowing that Nena's family blames him for her death.

And then, it is nine years later, 1846, and the Mexican-American War is ramping up.  All the Vaqueros as well as the higher-class men are called upon to fight the Yanquis and defend their Mexican lands.  Nestor returns to the Rancho where Nena lives and discovers she never died.

The story is a love story, and, of course a battle between the classes.  It is also a story of the Mexican-American war which occurred for just under two years in 1846 -1848.  I knew little about the Mexican-American war, and now I don't know much more, but it was fascinating to learn about the war, especially through the eyes of Mexicans.  Mexico ceded what is now California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and parts of other states.  A devastating loss for our country to the south.

But what about the vampires, you ask!  We meet our first vampire that we actually know is a vampire about halfway through the book.  But they are not presented as they are in the Twilight series.  They are not handsome young men who want to bite your neck.  They are ugly beasts who roam the lands in search of their unique food.  They are harnessed by the Yanquis to attack Mexicans.  They are supernatural, unearthly creatures who are key characters in the stories told of Mexican lore.

I enjoyed this rather unusual gothic historical romance novel.  Thank you to my friend Kathleen who thought I would like it.  I did.  The one major fault?  Perhaps more than any other book I have read, this book needs a map.  I googled in search of a map of the two countries at the time of the war, but they only gave me a sense of the large lands that were in the dispute.  I need a map that shows me, in Spanish, the towns, villages, rivers, borders, battlegrounds, and ranches.

Yes, I recommend Vampires of El Norte.

March 2025

Sophie Stava

Novel 2025 | 326 pages

Sloane, a nail tech, meets four-year-old Harper and her dad Jay at the local park, when Harper steps on a bee.  Immediately, two lies pop out of her mouth ... that her name is Caitlin and that she is a nurse.  Conveniently, the nail techs in her spa wear scrubs.  Sloane is a pathological liar.  Disappointed to learn that handsome Jay is married and not a single dad, Sloane meets his wife Violet and begins to interact with the family.  Soon, she becomes Harper's nanny (it is true that she was a nanny in the past.). It is difficult to watch her obsession with Violet grow.  She buys the same hat that Violet wears, colors her hair the same color, and attempts to cut her hair in the same manner (a disaster which Violet's hairdresser must rectify).  She has low self-esteem and creates her life by mimicking the occasional "friend" she seems to acquire.

Sloane/Caitlin is clearly not emotionally healthy.  She is pathological, shallow, vapid, empty.  I wonder why am reading about this uninspiring character.  And yet, I keep turning the pages eagerly.  There is something about the writing and about the inconceivable story line that keeps me quite engaged.

And then, at the halfway mark, a new section in the book is introduced, entitled "Violet."  And, wow!  Who is the better pathological liar, Sloane/Caitlin or Violet?  Everything gets turned, quite literally, upside down and backward. Violet's plan is complex, amazing, brilliant.  But it doesn't turn out the way she expects.  Somehow, it turns out even better!

If you are a bit unsure while reading the first half of this book, as I was, stick with it. Yet another astounding debut novel!  Can Sophie Stava keep this up?  Will she write another suspense novel?  I will keep my eyes open and be the first to order it from the library!

Yes, have fun with this recommended read!

March 2025

Sophie Stava

Novel 2025 | 326 pages

A GUEST BLOG POST BY BRIAN GOMEZ!

A great read! Sloane is a woman with low self-esteem. Her lies get her into trouble, and not for the first time she finds she must start over. Then she finds a true friend in Violet, a wealthy woman in need of a nanny for her preschool child, Harper. But Violet is not all that she seems and the story marches excruciatingly toward tragedy, but for whom?

March 2025