What I'm reading ...

I have started The Magician’s Assistant by Ann Patchett. Although I should now be on to non-fiction, the last book was short and unsatisfying, so I am awarding myself some time with this tried and tested author. Here’s the blurb:

Sabine – twenty years a magician's assistant to her handsome, charming husband – is suddenly a widow.

In the wake of his death, she finds he has left a final trick; a false identity and a family allegedly lost in a tragic accident but now revealed as very much alive and well.

Named as heirs in his will, they enter Sabine's life and set her on an adventure of unravelling his secrets, from sunny Los Angeles to the windswept plains of Nebraska, that will work its own sort of magic on her.

Orbital - by Samantha Harvey

The subject matter of this book should interest me: the operation of the space station and the lives of the [fictional] characters. My problem was that a trusted friend had already given me his rather negative views on the book, but I did try to approach it objectively.

Although I did learn stuff from reading the book, there really is not that much to say based on a single day's activity. The book is mercifully short, but even that required a lot of what feels like padding; long philosophical ramblings that seemed interminable.

How/why this book won the Booker is beyond me.

What I'm reading ...

I have started Orbital by Samantha Harvey. I am somewhat sceptical about award-winning books - and this one was last year’s Booker - but the subject matter made me decide to give this one a go. Here’s the blurb:

Life on our planet as you've never seen it before

A team of astronauts in the International Space Station collect meteorological data, conduct scientific experiments and test the limits of the human body. But mostly they observe. Together they watch their silent blue planet, circling it sixteen times, spinning past continents and cycling through seasons, taking in glaciers and deserts, the peaks of mountains and the swells of oceans. Endless shows of spectacular beauty witnessed in a single day.

Yet although separated from the world they cannot escape its constant pull. News reaches them of the death of a mother, and with it comes thoughts of returning home. They look on as a typhoon gathers over an island and people they love, in awe of its magnificence and fearful of its destruction.

The fragility of human life fills their conversations, their fears, their dreams. So far from earth, they have never felt more part - or protective - of it. They begin to ask, what is life without earth? What is earth without humanity?

Lab Girl - by Hope Jahren

I expected this book to be written from a perspective with which I might identify, as the author is a scientist. For the most part, that is the case, but the story was also much more personal than this view would imply. Overall, I found it quite a page-turner - I wanted to know how her life progressed. As always, with autobiographies and memoirs, I enjoyed learning about a life that is different to my own.

What I'm reading ...

I have started Lab Girl by Hope Jahren. I always like memoirs and autobiographies and this one has been sitting on my “shelf” for quite a while. I noted that someone famous [Can’t remember who!] was enjoying reading it recently, so I moved it up my list. Here’s the blurb:

Lab Girl is a book about work and about love, and the mountains that can be moved when those two things come together. It is told through Jahren's remarkable stories: about the discoveries she has made in her lab, as well as her struggle to get there; about her childhood playing in her father's laboratory; about how lab work became a sanctuary for both her heart and her hands; about Bill, the brilliant, wounded man who became her loyal colleague and best friend; about their field trips - sometimes authorised, sometimes very much not - that took them from the Midwest across the USA, to Norway and to Ireland, from the pale skies of North Pole to tropical Hawaii; and about her constant striving to do and be her best, and her unswerving dedication to her life's work.

Visceral, intimate, gloriously candid and sometimes extremely funny, Jahren's descriptions of her work, her intense relationship with the plants, seeds and soil she studies, and her insights on nature enliven every page of this thrilling book. In Lab Girl, we see anew the complicated power of the natural world, and the power that can come from facing with bravery and conviction the challenge of discovering who you are.

Picture Perfect - by Jodi Picoult

As I expected, this author delivered. A well-paced, pleasingly complex story that educated as well as entertained me. I learned about domestic violence, the world of Hollywood celebrities, Native American culture and a bit about anthropology. I already look forward to the next Jodi Picoult book.