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annotated_emHey, look, I'm actually managing to post my reading round-up on an actual Wednesday! Wonders will never cease.
Anyway, over the past few days I've read the following:
The Martian, Andy Weir: Mark Watney has a problem. The Ares 3 mission to Mars has been scrubbed due to an unfortunate dust storm, but his crewmates think he's dead and lifted off without him. The next Ares mission won't show up for another four years, and he's only got food and water to last him for a hundred days or so. Lucky for him, he's stubborn, smart, and a smart-ass, and he's determined to survive, no matter what it takes.
This was really engaging, and a pretty compelling read. It's mostly journal entries interspersed with a modicum of narrative, so it was a brisk read too. And Watney's narration is full of black humor, which leavens what is honestly a pretty grim narrative.
Without a Summer, Mary Robinette Kowal: Jane and Vincent decide to take Melody with them to London in order to increase her chances of finding a husband, but civil unrest over the unemployment of the coldmongers and the unhappiness of the Luddites, along with Vincent's tense relationship with his father, means that things don't go quite as smoothly as planned.
Longbourn, Jo Baker: In Pride and Prejudice, the servants are pretty much invisible. In Longbourn, Jo Baker explores the lives of the servants who work in the background of Jane and Elizabeth's lives the protagonists, exploring the sheer amount of work underpinning their lives of leisure. The events of Pride and Prejudice play through the lives of Sarah (the housemaid), Mrs. Hill (the cook/housekeeper), and James (the new footman). As the author's afterword notes, every time a carriage is requested for Jane or Elizabeth, James drives it; every time a proxy is sent to purchase shoe roses, Sarah must go to fetch them (even in the pouring rain). But the plot of this novel is not driven by Jane and Elizabeth's narrative arcs--Sarah, Mrs. Hill, and James all have their own lives and their own narrative journeys to follow--and some of the characters who get short shrift in Austen (Mrs. Bennet, Mr. Collins) are rendered more sympathetically here.
This was a really good read.
Anyway, over the past few days I've read the following:
The Martian, Andy Weir: Mark Watney has a problem. The Ares 3 mission to Mars has been scrubbed due to an unfortunate dust storm, but his crewmates think he's dead and lifted off without him. The next Ares mission won't show up for another four years, and he's only got food and water to last him for a hundred days or so. Lucky for him, he's stubborn, smart, and a smart-ass, and he's determined to survive, no matter what it takes.
This was really engaging, and a pretty compelling read. It's mostly journal entries interspersed with a modicum of narrative, so it was a brisk read too. And Watney's narration is full of black humor, which leavens what is honestly a pretty grim narrative.
Without a Summer, Mary Robinette Kowal: Jane and Vincent decide to take Melody with them to London in order to increase her chances of finding a husband, but civil unrest over the unemployment of the coldmongers and the unhappiness of the Luddites, along with Vincent's tense relationship with his father, means that things don't go quite as smoothly as planned.
Longbourn, Jo Baker: In Pride and Prejudice, the servants are pretty much invisible. In Longbourn, Jo Baker explores the lives of the servants who work in the background of Jane and Elizabeth's lives the protagonists, exploring the sheer amount of work underpinning their lives of leisure. The events of Pride and Prejudice play through the lives of Sarah (the housemaid), Mrs. Hill (the cook/housekeeper), and James (the new footman). As the author's afterword notes, every time a carriage is requested for Jane or Elizabeth, James drives it; every time a proxy is sent to purchase shoe roses, Sarah must go to fetch them (even in the pouring rain). But the plot of this novel is not driven by Jane and Elizabeth's narrative arcs--Sarah, Mrs. Hill, and James all have their own lives and their own narrative journeys to follow--and some of the characters who get short shrift in Austen (Mrs. Bennet, Mr. Collins) are rendered more sympathetically here.
This was a really good read.
