The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer
This is the story of William, a typically poor kid growing up in Malawi and his dreams of getting an education and escaping the poor farming lifestyle so many people in Malawi suffer through. He tells the story of growing up, farming, struggling through drought, famine and hunger, and the disappointment of no longer being able to afford to pay for school. In an effort to not fall too far behind his peers, he starts studying from books he can get from the library and becomes fixated on generating electricity from the wind. He scavenges parts from the junk yard, digs up PVC drain pipes to make into blades and works odd jobs so he can pay for some welding. The book spends a lot more time on his life in general than I expected – friends, school, farming, family, drought, etc. – and took a while to actually get around to the wind power. But it was an interesting (true) story, and a good reminder about the many people in the world whose lives can be changed by something as simple as having an electric light in their home for the first time.
X by Chuck Klosterman
Chuck loves two things: sports and music. This book is a collection of articles that he has written over the years on these two topics for places like GQ, Esquire, Grantland, and others. He's a good writer, and I enjoyed the essays on sports. As for the music . . . well, when he decided to devote 34 pages to the band KISS, I chose to skip ahead. I still read his interviews with a lot of 70s and 80s rockers (Van Halen), as well as younger artists (Taylor Swift), but the book would have been better for me if it had been 60% sports and 40% music instead of the other way around.
Artemis by Andy Weir
It must be daunting to try to follow up a first novel that was as successful as The Martian, but Andy Weir has done a decent job of it with Artemis. Set in the near future, Jasmine "Jazz" Bashara is a determined, independent, struggling woman in her 20s who lives in a small town, which just happens to be located on the moon. She makes a living by making deliveries for the people and businesses throughout the permanent moon base, which gives her excellent cover for her second job: smuggling small basic items that aren't allowed on the moon – mostly things like cigars that aren't allowed up there. (Fire is bad when you can't go outside in the event of an emergency.) She gets contacted for a job that is a little outside her normal realm – industrial sabotage – which unsurprisingly gets her involved in a situation that is much bigger than she was lead to believe.
Just like The Martian, Weir does a good job of thinking through what it would be like to be on the moon. I didn't have any issues with the way he deals with things like gravity, air pressure, oxygen generation, food supply, communication and things like that. The plot of his first book was essentially one engineering problem after another, while this book is more of an adventure novel with hiding from the bad guys, breaking in to places, and trying to keep yourself out of jail. The book has some language, particularly sexual references in conversation between the characters. (There's no actual sex in the book – there's all of one kiss – but things are discussed in terms that I wouldn't repeat, or suggest that my mother read.)
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