Oakland Library Book Review: The Martian by Andy Weir

July 14, 2015 Leave a comment


 By Rosa Schmidt, Oakland Public Library Director 

 The Martian by Andy Weir grabs the reader the instant you begin. The story is told from the perspective of Mark Watney, an astronaut for NASA. He and a crew are collecting samples on MARS when a dust storm causes them to do an emergency evacuation. During the process, Watney is injured and presumed dead. His captain, in an effort to save the rest of the crew leaves his body on MARS. Only Watney is not dead and the tale that unfolds is incredible.

As the story progresses we get narratives from key NASA members, media and Watney’s crew, further drawing us into the suspense. Will Watney be saved or will he die alone on MARS?

Weir is a masterful writer, from his descriptions of MARS, the equipment involved, to the character depth. Despite all of the technical jargon the story flows enough that even non-science fiction readers will enjoy “The Martian”.

The son of a physicist, and with a background in computer science, Weir researched to make the story realistic; studying orbital mechanics, astronomy, and the history of manned spaceflight.      

Director Ridley Scott brings “The Martian” to theaters this October, starring Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristin Wiig and Kate Mara. Do yourself a favor and enjoy this amazing story by reading the book first. You know the book is always better!

Rosa Schmidt, Oakland Public Library Director. Photo Credit/Denise Gilliland, Editor and Chief, Kat Country Hub.

Rosa Schmidt, Oakland Public Library Director. Photo Credit/Denise Gilliland, Editor and Chief, Kat Country Hub.

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Rosa’s Book Review: The Wright Brothers

July 1, 2015 Leave a comment


By Rosa Schmidt, Oakland Public Library Director

David McCullough has been widely acclaimed as a “master of the art of narrative history”. He is twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, twice winner of the National Book Award, and has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award.
McCullough’s most recent book, “The Wright Brothers” tells the dramatic story-behind-the-story about the courageous brothers who taught the world how to fly: Wilbur and Orville Wright.

On a winter day in 1903, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, two unknown brothers from Ohio changed history. But it would take the world some time to believe what had happened: the age of flight had begun, with the first heavier-than-air, powered machine carrying a pilot.

Who were these men and how was it that they achieved what they did? Far more than a couple of unschooled Dayton bicycle mechanics who happened to hit on success, they were men of exceptional courage and determination, and of far-ranging intellectual interests and ceaseless curiosity, much of which they attributed to their upbringing. The house they lived in had no electricity or indoor plumbing, but there were books aplenty, supplied mainly by their preacher father, and they never stopped reading.

When they worked together, no problem seemed to be insurmountable. Wilbur was unquestionably a genius. Orville had such mechanical ingenuity as few had ever seen. That they had no more than a public high school education, little money and no contacts in high places, never stopped them in their mission to take to the air. Nothing did, not even the self-evident reality that every time they took off in one of their contrivances, they risked being killed.

In this thrilling book, master historian David McCullough draws on the immense riches of the Wright Papers, including private diaries, notebooks, scrapbooks, and more than a thousand letters from private family correspondence to tell the human side of the Wright Brothers’ story, including the little-known contributions of their sister, Katharine, without whom things might well have gone differently for them.

Rosa Schmidt, Oakland Public Library Director. Photo Credit/Denise Gilliland, Editor and Chief, Kat Country Hub.

Rosa Schmidt, Oakland Public Library Director. Photo Credit/Denise Gilliland, Editor and Chief, Kat Country Hub.

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Book Review: All the Light We Cannot See

June 17, 2015 Leave a comment


By Rosa Schmidt, Oakland Public Library Director

Anthony Doerr’s winner of the 2015 Pulitzer for Fiction, “All the light we cannot see”, deftly weaves the story of Marie-Laure LeBlanc and Werner Pfennig during World War II. Marie-Laure, valiant and inquisitive, lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When Marie-Laure is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, tow-headed German orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s collide.

I know, I know….there are so many stories set during WW2. However, the stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors make “All the light we cannot see” one that deserves to be read. Much more than a war story, Doerr’s novel illuminates the miraculous impact that seminal events have on the rest of our lives.

Rosa Schmidt, Oakland Public Library Director. Photo Credit/Denise Gilliland, Editor and Chief, Kat Country Hub.

Rosa Schmidt, Oakland Public Library Director. Photo Credit/Denise Gilliland, Editor and Chief, Kat Country Hub.

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The Girl on the Train Book Review

June 11, 2015 Leave a comment


By Rosa Schmidt, Oakland Public Library Director

Paula Hawkins’ debut novel “The Girl on the Train” is a suspenseful thriller filled with a complex plot, shocking twists at every turn, and an ending that will both stun and leave you wanting more.

Published in January of 2015, “Girl on a Train” has been touted as the next “Gone Girl” (a novel by Gillian Flynn/movie starring Ben Affleck). I myself see no real similarity between the two, other than the fact that they are both exciting page-turners and refreshingly different.

Hawkins’ novel tells the story of Rachel Watson, who has spent the last few years stumbling through life in a booze-filled depression ever since her husband left her for another woman. Now she spends her days riding the commuter train to and from London, even though she was fired from her job months ago, so that no one will know was a mess her life has become. The train stops for a few minutes every day near her old neighborhood, where she begins spying on an unknown couple, (think Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window”) until the one day she sees something that changes everything. Of course with her unreliable history, no one believes her story and she is compelled to solve the mystery on her own.

“The Girl on the Train” will change how you see other people’s lives….the real and the imaginary.

Paula Hawkins’ debut novel “The Girl on the Train” is a suspenseful thriller filled with a complex plot, shocking twists at every turn, and an ending that will both stun and leave you wanting more.

Published in January of 2015, “Girl on a Train” has been touted as the next “Gone Girl” (a novel by Gillian Flynn/movie starring Ben Affleck). I myself see no real similarity between the two, other than the fact that they are both exciting page-turners and refreshingly different.

Hawkins’ novel tells the story of Rachel Watson, who has spent the last few years stumbling through life in a booze-filled depression ever since her husband left her for another woman. Now she spends her days riding the commuter train to and from London, even though she was fired from her job months ago, so that no one will know was a mess her life has become. The train stops for a few minutes every day near her old neighborhood, where she begins spying on an unknown couple, (think Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window”) until the one day she sees something that changes everything. Of course with her unreliable history, no one believes her story and she is compelled to solve the mystery on her own.

“The Girl on the Train” will change how you see other people’s lives….the real and the imaginary.

 

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Book Review: 50 Shades of Grey

February 12, 2015 Leave a comment


By Rosa Schmidt, Oakland Public Library Director

Love it or hate it, 2011 novel “Fifty Shades of Grey” made author E. L. James more than just a household name it also fulfilled a childhood dream of being a writer of stories that readers would fall  in love with. And that they seem to have done, to the tune of $60 million.

E. L. (Erika Leonard) James novel is noted for its explicitly erotic scenes that feature numerous elements of sexual practices which involved sadism/masochism, bondage/discipline, and dominance/submission. When literature student Anastasia Steele goes to interview young entrepreneur Christian Grey, she encounters a man who is beautiful, brilliant, and intimidating. The unworldly, innocent Ana is startled to realize she wants this man and, despite his enigmatic reserve, finds she is desperate to get close to him. Unable to resist Ana’s quiet beauty, wit, and independent spirit, Grey admits he wants her, too—but on his own
terms.

Shocked yet thrilled by Grey’s singular erotic tastes, Ana hesitates. For all the trappings of success, —his multinational businesses, his vast wealth, his loving family—, Grey is a man tormented by demons and consumed by the need to control. When the couple embarks on a daring, passionately physical affair, Ana discovers Christian Grey’s secrets and explores her own dark desires.

Erotic, amusing, and deeply moving, the Fifty Shades Trilogy (Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker, and Fifty Shades
Freed) can obsess you, possess you, and stay with you or it may just leave you with the desire to go read a good book.

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