Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir is, like The Martian, another "guy all alone in outer space" story. But, in this case he's a junior high science teacher who has a humorous inability to swear because he's used to substituting words like "fudge" for the worse option. Also, he's the only man who can save Earth. If he fails, oh well. Earth was nice while it lasted. 

As the book opens the hero, Dr. Ryland Grace, is waking up inside a space ship. He has no idea where he is, how he got there, or what he's supposed to do. Throughout the book, his memory gradually returns and the reader goes back and forth between what's happening in the space ship and what led to the crisis that caused Dr. Grace — who was a consultant, not an astronaut — to end up on this mission. 

There is an alien encounter in Project Hail Mary and it is absolutely delightful. You will fall in love with the alien and maybe cry a bit at the ending. Both the type of book ("guy stuck alone in space figuring out how to fix things") and the entertainment value are more along the lines of The Martian than Artemis, the latter of which I know people found disappointing (myself included, but I liked it more than most). 

As in The Martian, there is a ton of math and science to wade through. This time, though, there are no potatoes. Just thought you'd like to know that. If you enjoyed The Martian, you'll love Project Hail Mary. 

Highly recommended - Loved it, laughed out loud many times, didn't even come close to following all the math and science but (again, as in my last review) I was able to read between the lines enough to get the gist of most of it. I gave Project Hail Mary a full five stars because I was immensely entertained. I'm hoping this Weir book will be turned into a mini series. I think there's a bit too much that happens to cut it down to movie length.

©2021 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri

 

I've put two images of The Beekeeper of Aleppo up because I noticed the one on the right is more common at Goodreads. My copy was like the one at left, an ARC, and it appears to be available with this cover in hardback but it's also possible that the image wasn't updated by the publisher. So, to make it easy to identify, if you decide to go looking for it in an actual store, I've opted to post both images.

The Beekeeper of Aleppo is about a man and his family who lived in Aleppo, Syria, when it was a peaceful place. After meeting his cousin Mustafa and finding out about his work as a beekeeper, Nuri chose to join his cousin Mustafa's beekeeping business. But, then drought hit the country, followed by war. Now, his house has been bombed, his child killed, and his wife blinded. The book goes back and forth in time, from the idyllic past in which Nuri's country is beautiful and peaceful and he has a job he loves to the beginnings of drought, the bombings, the deaths of loved ones, his cousin's escape to England, and then finally a time when Nuri's life is threatened and he's left with no choice but to try to get to England, as well. All of that falls into the past timeline. In the present timeline, Nuri is living in England, hoping to be approved for asylum, and doing strange things like sleeping in the garden.

There's so much to this book. You get a glimpse of the horrifying journey that one must take to escape across Europe, where not every country is willing to let immigrants pass through and human smugglers take too many people across the water on dangerously unstable boats. You see the deterioration of a country from peaceful and lovely to being reduced to violence and rubble (in this case, due to climate change). The loss of one's livelihood (Nuri's beekeeping; his wife Afra's art) is shown as yet another facet of loss and grief. The death of a child and the post-traumatic stress and how they change the way Nuri and Afra behave is described. The dangers to women who are refugees are shown.

Being a refugee . . . this is the third book I've read about people having no choice but to escape violence-ridden countries (not the same country) but the hazards are always the same. You leave out of desperation and take very little. Every little thing you have, though, some people are willing to steal: your money, your backpack with just a few shreds of clothing and maybe a bar of soap, your phone, your shoes, your life. Women are often raped or otherwise abused. You could have been wealthy in your home country but you're nothing and nobody, just a chance to make money to a smuggler, a nuisance to the countries you travel through, a suspicious alien to those from whom you seek asylum. We, the readers, normally see these stories from the opposite side, as the place people try to go. In a country where asylum is a possibility, it's incumbent upon the residents to understand why anyone would want to leave their home and travel thousands of miles to ask for asylum. The Beekeeper of Aleppo is a novel that helps give you that perspective.

Highly recommended - While I didn't find that The Beekeeper of Aleppo tugged at my heartstrings in the way that some do (I didn't cry; I just took the family into my heart and maybe grieved with them and feared for them), I think I got out of The Beekeeper of Aleppo what the author wanted — a better understanding of what it's like to live somewhere that was once a happy, beautiful place to live with a rich history and then have no choice but to run for your life; a feel for the horror, the grief, and the terror of being a refugee. I'm glad the author chose to portray the story through the eyes of Nuri rather than Afra because Afra's grief made her nearly catatonic, at times, while Nuri refused to give up hope. He had problems and fears and guilt, but he was still mostly a functioning human.

I received an ARC of The Beekeeper of Aleppo from Ballantine Books (an imprint of Penguin Random House) for review. Many thanks! I think this title would be a good one for group discussion and I plan to loan my copy to my F2F group's leader in the hopes that she'll agree.


©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

From the stacks - Spillover by Quammen, The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

I just recently acquired Spillover by David Quammen and The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell (the former purchased after book buddies talked about it; the latter via Paperback Swap after a lengthy wait). Both are books I enjoyed for completely different reasons.

I bought Spillover after eavesdropping on a conversation between Jill of Rhapsody in Books and Michele of A Reader's Respite. Subtitled "Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic," the book is about diseases that cross the animal-human barrier, how scientists isolate such diseases, find the animals from which diseases spill over to humans and work backward to find reservoir animals (those who continue to carry the disease, with or without the disease infecting its hosts), why viruses are particularly scary, which are most likely to cause devastation if they aren't stopped quickly enough during an outbreak, how diseases have traveled and been contained in the past, etc.

At around 600 pages, Spillover goes pretty deep into the history and origins of quite a few terrifying illnesses, like Ebola, SARS, Marburg, and AIDS. My timing was interesting. As I began reading this book, my cousin (an epidemiologist who used to work for the CDC) was sharing articles about the latest Ebola outbreak in Western Africa. The outbreak had been going on for around 3 months without being contained and was not yet making the national news but the numbers (cases and deaths) were just beginning to outpace previous outbreaks. Now, of course, the disease has exploded; the latest outbreak is unprecedented in many ways and I think, if anything, we're probably not concerned enough, at least in the right ways. The panic about Americans being flown home under careful conditions was silly. It's the idea of someone infectious hopping a plane without realizing they're infectious that's of concern. [Update: I guess we'll see how that goes, since Ebola has arrived in the U.S. in an uncontained manner.]

I also learned that I've been misled into believing that deer are responsible for Lyme disease. They are not, and mass killings of deer have been proven not to lower incidents, but deer killings for reduction of Lyme disease are still occurring.

Spillover is both fascinating and terrifying. When you read it, you'll find yourself thinking you should always, always wear a medical-grade mask on airplanes, possibly gloves. You'll wash your hands more frequently and worry about the person coughing nearby. It's a bracing read. But, it's also an important one. I had no idea, for example, that the SARS outbreak of a few years ago really was a "pandemic", an epidemic that traveled around the world. It's so difficult to tell whether or not the news is blown out of proportion that I really thought it was no big deal. Fortunately, that particular pandemic was contained before it became as deadly as it could have but it is extremely easy to acquire and is a vicious killer with a high death rate. And, then there's AIDS, a slow-moving but long-lived pandemic that we have come nowhere close to conquering. David Quammen has since written a book entirely about the search for the reservoir of AIDS. Spillover was published in October of 2012 by W. W. Norton and Co.  My thanks to Jill and Michele for talking about it. I love a good, messy medical read and highly recommend it to those interested in medical history.

Also, if you're interested in following non-inflammatory news about Ebola and other emerging illnesses and outbreaks, CIDRAP is by far the best online site.

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell originally came to my attention via Les's review at Prairie Horizons. I added the book to my wish list at Paperback Swap and waited. It was a long wait. I just happened to receive my copy about a week or two before Trish of Love, Laughter, and a Touch of Insanity (link leads to Trish's post about The Sparrow) began talking about doing a Sparrow Read-along.

I'm snatching the description from Goodreads:

In 2019, humanity finally finds proof of extraterrestrial life when a listening post in Puerto Rico picks up exquisite singing from a planet which will come to be known as Rakhat. While United Nations diplomats endlessly debate a possible first contact mission, the Society of Jesus quietly organizes an eight-person scientific expedition of its own. What the Jesuits find is a world so beyond comprehension that it will lead them to question the meaning of being "human". Worlds like "provocative" and "compelling" will come to mind as you read this shocking novel about first contact with a race that creates music akin to both poetry and prayer. 

The book is written from two perspectives. It's not a spoiler to say that Emilio is the only survivor of the expedition. You know from the beginning that he has returned both physically and emotionally damaged. He's extremely ill, badly injured, traumatized and depressed. He's also unwilling to speak about what happened on Rakhat. Scenes from after Emilio's return are interspersed with those from the past, describing the discovery of the signal from Rakhat, the decision to launch an expedition, the personalities involved and what happened once they arrived. As Emilio heals, his story unfolds.

The Sparrow is an emotional, exhausting read. As I was reading I noticed that people used words like "gutted" to describe how they felt. One mentioned feeling shocked midway through the reading. I didn't feel a real emotional punch till near the end. Some of the deaths were unexpectedly violent and particularly gut-wrenching. Emilio's experience, though, was the part that moved me the most. You have a vague idea what happened to him but not the details, till near the end of the book. It was what happened to Emilio and how he ended up blaming himself that made me feel queasy with horror. But, I closed the book feeling satisfied and tired and ready to chatter about it. There's plenty to discuss, so it was a good book for a read-along and definitely one I'd recommend, particularly for book group discussion. I didn't love it. It sounds like I did but from a macro viewpoint it was not a favorite; it's a book with elements that I adored, some that I disliked. I was alternately engrossed and bored, inspired and wearied. I loved the characterization and the mode of transportation to Rakhat, more than anything. My thanks to Trish for the nudge. I probably would have just plunked The Sparrow on the shelf and waited till it called to me. I'm glad I read it with a group, instead.

©2014 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Clover House by Henriette Lazaridis Power

The Clover House by Henriette Lazaridis Power
Copyright 2013 
Ballantine Books (an imprint of Random House) - WWII/Contemporary fiction
412 pp., incl. Reader's Guide

Source:  Random House for TLC Tours

What's it about:

Callie Brown's uncle Nestor in Patras, Greece has passed away and left her the contents of his house.  Callie believes something in that house will explain her mother's oddities -- why her stories don't match up to those of of her sisters, why she has always been seemingly unable to love or even speak a kind word, why she was so unhappy in America, why she left Greece in the first place but returned, years later. At the same time, Callie must try to figure out her own problems. Why did a proposal from her boyfriend of three years cause her to panic?  Is it possible for Callie to give her heart to one man?

Where it takes place:

Boston, briefly, and Patras, Greece during WWII and the year 2000

What I liked about The Clover House:

As usual with a book that leaps back and forth between an historical time period and a contemporary story, interconnecting the two, I preferred the historical story.  It's set during WWII in Greece and it was yet another fresh perspective on WWII.  I liked the fact that Callie's mother's stories didn't necessarily match up with those of her sisters and the statement the author was trying to make about memory being unreliable, slanted and -- at times -- perhaps less important than the emotional weight we sometimes attach to it (from a personal standpoint).  

The door to the stairs is just there, across the foyer.  But on that earlier visit, I was looking for the site of an innocent childhood game.  Instead, I learned that even a shared experience can splinter into conflicting memories. 

~p. 348

I also really loved the stories from WWII, which are essentially the stories the author's family told her, with a few modifications for dramatic effect.

What I disliked about The Clover House:

Callie and her mother bear some similarities to my relationship with my own mother -- not in quite so horrid a fashion, but in the manner of "traumatized mother who is unable to share her early experience with her child."  Callie manages to weasel quite a bit of info from her mother and aunts, although the end result is rather like a puzzle that's still missing handful of pieces.  In my case, even as she was dying my mother was still unwilling or unable to talk about the years before my parents married and her only living sibling also won't say a word.  I don't like that, but I accepted it a long time ago and I found that I had very little patience with Callie's quest for information.  She was lucky to have such a big, happy extended family that was welcoming to her.  That would be enough for me.  

I also absolutely hated the contemporary setting -- not the place, but the setting in the midst of the annual Carnival, which sounded a bit like a very extended Mardi Gras with some extra immorality tossed in for good measure.  It's the kind of setting I do my best to avoid in real life -- raucous, drunken crowds.  Blecch.  Not my thing, so I didn't particularly like reading about it.  

Recommendation:

Recommended but not a favorite - Loved the WWII storyline, disliked the main character and I found that the mystery of what happened to Callie's mother unfolded too slowly for my liking.  I was tempted to set the book aside about halfway through, but I'm glad I finished it.  In the end, I found the story was wrapped up in a satisfying way -- a bit like real life in that not everything is complete, but the heroine redeemed herself (although I never really did like her).

There are some strange sentences at the beginning of the book and my immediate thought was, "Oh, no, I hope I don't feel like breaking out a red pen all the way through this book."  I didn't. Although there were times I thought a sentence could have been improved upon, The Clover House is really quite well-written, apart from those few bits at the beginning.  Sometimes the author can be very wise and thought-provoking.  

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Lola's Secret by Monica McInerney

Lola's Secret by Monica McInerney
Copyright 2012
Ballantine Books - Fiction/Christmas
352 pp. 
Previously published in Australia

If you've been hanging around my blog lately, you know I recently went on a Christmas-book binge after being tasked with the job of making suggestions for my face-to-face book group's December read.  Lola's Secret by Monica McInerney is one of the books I ended up reading, thanks to TLC Book Tours, and it's an unusual one.  Set in Australia with an 84-year-old heroine, the story is neither the sappy romance I occasionally let myself get sucked into during the Christmas season (although there is a touch of romance) nor the magical variety that I much prefer.

Lola used to run a small hotel but has long since passed the reigns on to her son and daughter-in-law.  She lives in the hotel and owns little, moving from one room to another when the mood strikes her.  As Christmas approaches, Lola decides she wants a change of pace.  Her son and daughter-in-law want to take a vacation and Lola is happy to shoo them away so that she can have a little fun creating a special Christmas for a small number of guests.

But, things don't work out quite the way Lola intended. And, there is where I'll stop describing the book because it's very plot-heavy and I don't want to ruin a thing, but you can count on reading about a headstrong, likable character facing her past and living in the present with admirable gusto. Lola is a terrific character.

It wasn't till I finished the book that I read about Monica McInerney and discovered that Lola originally appeared in a book called The Alphabet Sisters.  If you haven't read The Alphabet Sisters, you are definitely going to come out of Lola's Secret knowing what became of them in the novel, so I advise reading the two books in order if that concerns you.  But, in my case, I found McInerney's writing so engaging that I do plan to look for a copy of The Alphabet Sisters.

As I was gathering information about the book for my review, I noticed the author is often compared to Maeve Binchy.  Shockingly, I have only read short stories by Maeve Binchy and I was disappointed with them.  You can read my thoughts in "London Transports by Maeve Binchy or Please Hit These Characters Upside the Head" (which was written in the Dark Ages of book blogging). But even regular readers of Binchy disliked that particular collection, so I don't think I've gotten a good feel for her writing and certainly cannot compare the two.

As I was reading, I was reminded of Debbie Macomber's writing: lighthearted, sometimes funny, occasionally sad and, most importantly, things keep happening.  I thought the book was consistently surprising. The big difference between Macomber and McInerney lies in the focus on an older woman and her family, rather than a young couple or two.  I only found the two authors' writing similar stylistically, in other words.  Lola's Secret is really a family story, not a romance.  And, of course, it's hot in Australia at Christmas so Lola's Secret is unique in that way. Snow is pretty much a given in a Macomber Christmas book.

Recommended - Lola is a terrific character; wise, witty, spirited, flawed, wacky, upbeat . . . what a treat to read a story with such a well-rounded character. I guess you could call Lola's Secret a seasonal type of "women's fiction" and in that way it was a slightly unusual read for me because I have a tendency to avoid books that are specifically about women and their friends and family.  I have no idea why.  At any rate, I enjoyed it and will definitely look for more books by Monica McInerney.

Other reviews:

The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader - I happened across Marg's review, just after I finished reading my copy.  Her post is excellent.  Go read it, even if you're not interested in the book; there's much more to the post than just a review.

Cover thoughts:

The cover is beautiful but it doesn't look very Christmasy, does it?

Interesting side notes:

• I'm pretty sure London Transports by Maeve Binchy was the first book I reviewed on this blog.  
• Lola's Secret is the first book I've gotten from Net Galley.  I'm still not a fan of e-books, but they're growing on me slo-o-o-wly.

And, in other news:

Kiddo had car trouble so we had to zip up to Oxford to help him out, this weekend.  Fortunately, it turned out to be a quick fix.  We ate breakfast at home, had lunch with Kiddo in Oxford, shopped a little in Memphis and made it home in time for supper.  What a whirlwind day, but fun!  On the road to Memphis we saw this flock of birds:

Egrets!  They're hard to see because I didn't have a telephoto lens on my camera, but I'm happy that I was at least able to capture an image of them (through the windshield - fortunately, before it became so bug-splattered that photography became impossible).  It was a beautiful day and the trees are turning in northern Mississippi, so the drive was just about perfect.

©2012 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.