July Books

[dantheman23.livejournal.com]

The Martian [audio book]
by Andy Weir

A co-worker recommended this, and it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. In fact if you take classics out of the equation I would say it’s one of the 3 or 4 best books I’ve ever read. Set in present times, it tells the (fictitious) story of the Ares manned missions to Mars (the lunar missions were named Mercury, Aries, and Apollo, so Ares continues the naming convention), specifically Ares III. There’s an accident and one astronaut is presumed dead, but he actually survives and is marooned on Mars. He’s a mechanical engineer and a botanist, so he has a lot of knowledge and creativity to help him survive. The various solutions he comes up with to solve the problems that crop up are very clever, and the writing is sharp and funny. And the reader was FANTASTIC. Just about the best reader I’ve ever listened to. If you do decide to pick up this wonderful novel, try to get the audio version (although there were times I wish I had the printed version just so I could fly through it faster!). It does get fairly deep into the science at times, and well sometimes when it’s a matter of survival you have to do some not so pleasant things. So not a real girly kind of book : ) But if neither of those bothers you I highly highly recommend this novel. 5/5

Island Trilogy (Shipwreck, Survival, Escape
by Gordon Korman

This trilogy was recommended to me by some website; it’s the story of 6 kids who are sent out on a month long sea voyage to “build character” for various reasons, then end up stuck on a (mostly) deserted island. That sounded pretty good so I checked them out. I didn’t realize until I picked them up from the library that they’re kids’ books. Not even YA, just straight up kids’ books lolz. Each book was only 140 pages or so, and I read them all in a day. So not exactly challenging material, but fun reads nonetheless. It could definitely be used as a warmup for reading Lord of the Flies (which I highly recommend if you haven't read). 3/5

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
by Richard Feynman

I was over at my brother in-law’s place looking through his bookshelves when I spotted this book. I read it in high school and I’ve wanted to re-read it for a long time. Feynman was a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project among other things, and was a true character. He was incredibly smart, funny, very curious, and very adventurous. The book is full of funny stories from his life, mixed in with some science talk and his unique views on life. Great book I’d recommend to anyone. There’s a sequel called "What Do You Care What Other People Think? Further Adventures of a Curious Character” that I can’t remember if I read or not. I’ll have to pick that one up soon as well. 4.5/5

Play Money: Or, How I Quit My Day Job and Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot
by Julian Dibbell

First off, the title is a lie: he didn't make millions trading virtual loot. He did end up making the equivalent of $45,000 or so a year for a few monhs though. This is the story of a journalist who ventured into the world of online video games, at first just to investigate and report but eventually he gets hooked on trading and buying/selling virtual loot for real life money. I'm a gamer but I'm not into online games, and I've always wondered about this aspect of them, so it was a pretty interesting read. 3.5/5

Shelter
by Harlan Coben

Since I've exhausted all the books in the Myron Bolitar series I decided to start on the Mickey Bolitar series. This is the first book. Mickey is Myron's nephew and while he seems to be destined for similar adventures he has a different background and outlook on life, not to mention he's only 16. I think Corban wanted some freedom to go a different direction with the Myron character and universe so he set this up in the last couple of Myron books. Myron appears as a secondary character/mentor and some of the other stalwarts from Myron's world make cameos or are mentioned in passing. I would love more Myron books, but this was very good as well and I'll definitely keep reading the series (only 2 more books out now unfortunately). 4/5


Books for July: 7
Books for 2014: 50