Nothing beats curling up with a book and a blanket (especially a Hogwarts Express blanket). The Martian by Andy Weir is my latest read (will be Book 18 or 19 of #30Books when it is finished). It had been recommended to me a couple of times this year, and even though it breaks my "no reading white men" guidance for the year, it is a good read. And I prioritized it because a movie based on the book is coming out in October.
This also comes at a time where I supported the Bill Nye film Kickstarter. That's right, the Science Guy. Anyone who knows me knows that science and I - we are not friends. This read, and Bill Nye, may make us reluctant friends, meaning I appreciate you're here but I won't understand you the way I do my best friend, language. There are passages in Martian that I legitimately have to re-read to follow he science-y happenings. But the book itself is thrilling and I'm refreshing some of my knowledge from AP Chemistry in high school. And learning other things for the first time (like, how to make H2O - a novel concept). I also think this would be a great read in a HS science course. This all, of course, depends on whether the science in Martian is real (I am assuming most of it is, but really, what do I know?).
Bill Nye could confirm or deny the scientific contentions in Martian. He should have a MythBusters special of some kind. His Kickstarter (well, the KS of some fans who won Bill over to their idea) is about making a documentary about him, his career, and you guessed it - science! I got excited! I don't usually get excited about science-y things, but yes, I donated the day I saw it. And then I started reading Martian. I guess you could say that I'm giving science more opportunities to win me over.
I'm about halfway through the book and I fully expect to finish it soon, likely believing most, if not all of the science-y things inside.
In other news, Book 16 was Haruki Murakami's Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage which I've been eyeing for awhile. I liked it for the most part, because it was so different, but I was somewhat underwhelmed by the ending. I am assuming something was lost in translation. I also think Murakami's writing is generally beautiful - so I have no real complaints.
I am also back to my work-out reads as I trudge through the first couple of weeks of remembering how to endure a 5k (yes, endure). Since it's still August - and therefore the kind of hot that melts down my temples when I walk outside and constrains my breathing when I get into my car after a long day of it sitting in the parking lot - I am using a treadmill. It also helps with pacing, which is dreadfully slow.
Nevertheless, Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is my gym read - it lives on my iPad and I listen to the audiobook as I go ever-so-slowly through my 1.5 mile walk/jogs (notice how that is only half of a 5k...many weeks to go). It's really good! Depending on the pace of this and Martian, it will be Book 18 or 19 in #30Books.
It's a dystopian novel about a flu pandemic that wipes out a great deal of the world's population. As a result of this pandemic, we regress back to a time without electricity or modern conveniences; the world is more feudal and disconnected. It ties together the stories of several characters, both before, during and after the pandemic. A main thread connecting the stories together (ever so thinly about halfway through the book) is a traveling "symphony" - or a band of nomads traveling between towns (without technology and through the wilderness, mainly) who stop and perform Shakespeare. A common theme so far in the story is how we tell stories, the stories we choose to tell, the stories that live on and why, as well as the gaps in stories lost over time. On today's excursion, a particularly great earmark came up:
"What the Symphony was doing, what they were always doing, was trying to cast a spell...they lives they brushed up against were work-worm and difficult, people who spent all their time engaged in the tasks of survival."
I just thought this was a good reminder about how stories help us escape, to find comfort, and to remember, even for a minute, that the world is bigger than us.
So while I have my blanket (or a treadmill) and some books, I'll keep reading.
~MJ
