Jun 5
Next up on my Man Booker International challenge is A Horse Walks Into a Bar by David Grossman. Check out my review and see where it ranks in my personal list of Man Booker nominees. Read more
May 31
Time for our May 2017 monthly recap. Find out which books were favorites and which were duds. We’ll end our wrap up with a a list of books due out next month and a glimpse of our upcoming content. We also want to hear from you so let us know what you read this month and what you look forward to reading in June.
May 30
Last month we converted our Read Around the World feature into a group challenge and invited you all to join us as we make our way around the world. We took nominations and used the randomizer to plan our itinerary. The first stop on our group reading tour was Colombia. Join us as we explore literary Colombia and find out which book I selected and which books our participants (across Litsy, this blog, and Instagram) read this month. Read more
Apr 17
Susan Perabo, who is best known for her short story collection, recently released her breakout novel and I was lucky enough to receive a copy for review. If you enjoy contemporary fiction that centers on family functioning, this novel may be perfect for you. Keep reading to check out what I thought. Read more
Apr 3
We’re starting off the month with a book that gets a rare 5-star rating. Book Worm reviews White Tears by Hari Kunzru. Keep reading to see what she thought. Read more
Mar 31
Time for our March 2017 monthly recap. Find out which books were favorites and which were duds. We’ll end our wrap up with a a list of books due out this month and a glimpse of our upcoming content. We also want to hear from you so let us know what you read this month and what you look forward to reading in April and the rest of 2017.
Mar 20
I follow Roxane Gay on Twitter and I have heard her speak a few times but Difficult Women is the first book of hers that I’ve read. Overall, I have mixed feelings about the book and here’s my review… Read more
Looking for a thrilling escapist read? Book Worm may have the book for you. Check out her review of The Devil’s Prayer by Luke Gracias. One reviewer calls it a “faustian tale on steroids.” Read more
Feb 28
Time for our our February monthly recap! Find out which books were favorites and which were duds. We’ll end our wrap up with a a list of books due out this month and a glimpse of our upcoming content. We also want to hear from you so let us know what you read this month and what you look forward to reading in March.
Feb 23
The Terranauts by T.C Boyle
Published in: 2016
Reviewed by: Book Worm
Rating: ★★★.5
Find it here: The Terranauts
This ARC was provided by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis from Goodreads: A powerful, affecting and hilarious deep-dive into human behavior in an intimate and epic story of science, society, sex, and survival, set in the early 1990s, from one of the greatest American novelists today.
It is 1994, and in the desert near Tillman, Arizona, forty miles from Tucson, a grand experiment involving the future of humanity is underway. As climate change threatens the earth, eight scientists, four men and four women dubbed the “Terranauts,” have been selected to live under glass in E2, a prototype of a possible off-earth colony. Their sealed, three-acre compound comprises five biomes—rainforest, savanna, desert, ocean and marsh—and enough wildlife, water, and vegetation to sustain them.
Closely monitored by an all-seeing Mission Control, this New Eden is the brainchild of eco-visionary Jeremiah Reed, aka G.C.—“God the Creator”—for whom the project is both an adventure in scientific discovery and a momentous publicity stunt. In addition to their roles as medics, farmers, biologists, and survivalists, his young, strapping Terranauts must impress watchful visitors and a skeptical media curious to see if E2’s environment will somehow be compromised, forcing the Ecosphere’s seal to be broken—and ending the mission in failure. As the Terranauts face increased scrutiny and a host of disasters, both natural and of their own making, their mantra: “Nothing in, nothing out,” becomes a dangerously ferocious rallying cry.
Told through three distinct narrators—Dawn Chapman, the mission’s pretty young ecologist; Linda Ryu, her bitter, scheming best friend passed over for E2; and Ramsay Roothorp, E2’s sexually irrepressible Wildman—The Terranauts brings to life an electrifying, pressured world in which connected lives are uncontrollably pushed to the breaking point. With characteristic humor and acerbic wit, T. C. Boyle indelibly inhabits the perspectives of the various players in this survivalist game, probing their motivations and illuminating their integrity and fragility to illustrate the inherent fallibility of human nature itself. Read more
