The Martian
Andy Weir, 2014
Crown Publishing
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780553418026
Summary
Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.
Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there.
After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.
Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to kill him first.
But Mark isn't ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?
8 tips for surviving on Mars
So you want to live on Mars. Perhaps it's the rugged terrain, beautiful scenery, or vast natural landscape that appeals to you. Or maybe you're just a lunatic who wants to survive in a lifeless barren wasteland. Whatever your reasons, there are a few things you should know:
1: You're going to need a pressure vessel.
Mars's atmospheric pressure is less than one percent of Earth's. So basically, it's nothing. Being on the surface of Mars is almost the same as being in deep space. You better bring a nice, sturdy container to hold air in. By the way, this will be your home forever. So try to make it as big as you can.
2: You're going to need oxygen.
You probably plan to breathe during your stay, so you'll need to have something in that pressure vessel. Fortunately, you can get this from Mars itself. The atmosphere is very thin, but it is present and it's almost entirely carbon dioxide. There are lots of ways to strip the carbon off carbon dioxide and liberate the oxygen. You could have complex mechanical oxygenators or you could just grow some plants.
3: You're going to need radiation shielding.
Earth's liquid core gives it a magnetic field that protects us from most of the nasty crap the sun pukes out at us. Mars has no such luxury. All kinds of solar radiation gets to the surface. Unless you're a fan of cancer, you're going to want your accommodations to be radiation-shielded. The easiest way to do that is to bury your base in Martian sand and rocks. They're not exactly in short supply, so you can just make the pile deeper and deeper until it's blocking enough.
4: You're going to need water.
Again, Mars provides. The Curiosity probe recently discovered that Martian soil has quite a lot of ice in it. About 35 liters per cubic meter. All you need to do is scoop it up, heat it, and strain out the water. Once you have a good supply, a simple distillery will allow you to reuse it over and over.
5: You're going to need food.
Just eat Martians. They taste like chicken.
6: Oh, come on.
All right, all right. Food is the one thing you need that can't be found in abundance on Mars. You'll have to grow it yourself. But you're in luck, because Mars is actually a decent place for a greenhouse. The day/night cycle is almost identical to Earth's, which Earth plants evolved to optimize for. And the total solar energy hitting the surface is enough for their needs.
But you can't just grow plants on the freezing, near-vacuum surface. You'll need a pressure container for them as well. And that one might have to be pretty big. Just think of how much food you eat in a year and imagine how much space it takes to grow it.
Hope you like potatoes. They're the best calorie yield per land area.
7: You're going to need energy.
However you set things up, it won't be a self-contained system. Among other things, you'll need to deal with heating your home and greenhouse. Mars's average daily temperature is -50C (-58F), so it'll be a continual energy drain to keep warm. Not to mention the other life support systems, most notably your oxygenator. And if you're thinking your greenhouse will keep the atmosphere in balance, think again. A biosphere is far too risky on this scale.
8: You're going to need a reason to be there.
Why go out of your way to risk your life? Do you want to study the planet itself? Start your own civilization? Exploit local resources for profit? Make a base with a big death ray so you can address the UN while wearing an ominous mask and demand ransom? Whatever your goal is, you better have it pretty well defined, and you better really mean it. Because in the end, Mars is a harsh, dangerous place and if something goes wrong you'll have no hope of rescue. Whatever your reason is, it better be worth it. (From the publisher.)
See the 2015 film with Matt Damon.
Listen to our Movies Meet Book Club Podcast as Hollister and O'Tool review the movie and book.
Author Bio
• Birth—June 16, 1972
• Where—Davis, California, USAb
• Education—University of California, San Diego (no degree)
• Currently—lives in Mountain View, California
Andy Weir is an American novelist and software engineer known internationally for his debut novel The Martian, which was later adapted into a film of the same name directed by Ridley Scott in 2015. Artemis, his second novel, was released in 2017.
Early life
Weir was born and raised in California, the only child of an accelerator physicist father and an electrical-engineer mother who divorced when he was eight. Weir grew up reading classic science fiction such as the works of Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov At the age of 15, he began working as a computer programmer for Sandia National Laboratories. He studied computer science at UC San Diego, although he did not graduate. He worked as a programmer for several software companies, including AOL, Palm, MobileIron and Blizzard, where he worked on Warcraft 2.
Writing
Weir began writing science fiction in his 20s and published work on his website for years. His first work to gain significant attention was "The Egg", a short story that has been adapted into a number of YouTube videos and a one-act play.
Weir is best known for his first published novel, The Martian. He wrote the book to be as scientifically accurate as possible and his writing included extensive research into orbital mechanics, conditions on Mars, the history of manned spaceflight, and botany. Originally published as a free serial on his website, some readers requested he make it available on Kindle.
First sold for 99 cents, the novel made it to the Kindle bestsellers list. Weir was then approached by a literary agent and sold the rights of the book to an imprint of Penguin Random House. The print version (slightly edited from the original) of the novel debuted at #12 on the New York Times bestseller list. A Wall Street Journal review called the novel "the best pure sci-fi novel in years." In 2015 it was adapted to film, starring Matt Damon and Jessica Chastain.
Weir is working on his second novel, initially titled Zhek. He describes it as "a more traditional sci-fi novel, with has aliens, telepathy, faster-than-light travel, etc."
Personal
He currently lives in Mountain View, California, in a rented two-bedroom maisonette. Since he has a deep fear of flying, he never visited the set of the filming of The Martian in Budapest, which is where most of the Mars scenes were shot. With some therapy and medication, however, he was able to fly to Houston to visit Johnson Space Center and to San Diego to attend Comic-Con.
Weir refers to himself as an agnostic. As a fiscally-conservative social liberal, he tries to keep his political views out of his writing. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 12/22/2015.)
Book Reviews
Brilliant…a celebration of human ingenuity [and] the purest example of real-science sci-fi for many years…Utterly compelling
Wall Street Journal
An impressively geeky debut…the technical details keep the story relentlessly precise and the suspense ramped up. And really, how can anyone not root for a regular dude to prove the U-S-A still has the Right Stuff?
Entertainment Weekly
Andy Weir delivers with The Martian...a story for readers who enjoy thrillers, science fiction, non-fiction, or flat-out adventure [and] an authentic portrayal of the future of space travel.
Associated Press
(Starred review.) A dust storm strands astronaut Mark Watney on Mars and forces his landing crew to abandon the mission and return to Earth in Weir’s excellent first novel, an SF thriller..... Deftly avoiding the problem of the Robinson Crusoe tale that bogs down in repetitious behavior, Weir uses Watney’s proactive nature and determination to survive to keep the story escalating to a riveting conclusion.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Weir combines the heart-stopping with the humorous in this brilliant debut novel...by placing a nail-biting life-and-death situation on Mars and adding a snarky and wise-cracking nerdy hero, Weir has created the perfect mix of action and space adventure.
Library Journal
Riveting...a tightly constructed and completely believable story of a man's ingenuity and strength in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
Booklist
Sharp, funny and thrilling, with just the right amount of geekery…Weir displays a virtuosic ability to write about highly technical situations without leaving readers far behind. The result is a story that is as plausible as it is compelling.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. How did The Martian challenge your expectations of what the novel would be? What did you find most surprising about it?
2. What makes us root for a character to live in a survival story? In what ways do you identify with Mark? How does the author get you to care about him?
3. Do you believe the crew did the right thing in abandoning the search for Mark? Was there an alternative choice?
4. Did you find the science and technology behind Mark's problem-solving accessible? How did that information add to the realism of the story?
5. What are some of the ways the author established his credibility with scientific detail? Which of Mark's solutions did you find most amazing and yet believable?
5. What is your visual picture of the surface of Mars, based on the descriptions in the book? Have you seen photographs of the planet?
7. Who knew potatoes, duct tape, and seventies reruns were the key to space survival? How does each of these items represent aspects of Mark's character that help him survive?
8. How is Mark's sense of humor as much a survival skill as his knowledge of botany? Do you have a favorite funny line of his?
9. To what extent does Mark's log serve as his companion? Do you think it's implicit in the narrative that maintaining a log keeps him sane?
10. The author provides almost no back story regarding Mark's life on Earth. Why do you think he made this choice? What do you imagine Mark's past life was like?
11. There's no mention of Mark having a romantic relationship on Earth. Do you think that makes it easier or harder to endure his isolation? How would the story be different if he was in love with someone back home?
12. Were there points in the novel when you became convinced Mark couldn't survive? What were they, and what made those situations seem so dire?
13. The first time the narrative switched from Mark's log entries to third-person authorial narrative back on Earth, were you surprised? How does alternating between Mark's point of view and the situation on Earth enhance the story?
14. Did you believe the commitment of those on Earth to rescuing one astronaut? What convinced you most?
15. To what extent do you think guilt played a part in the crew's choice to go back to Mark? To what extent loyalty? How would you explain the difference?
16. How does the author handle the passage of time in the book? Did he transition smoothly from a day-to-day account to a span of one and a half years? How does he use the passage of time to build suspense?
17. Unlike other castaways, Mark can approximately predict the timing of his potential rescue. How does that knowledge help him? How could it work against him?
18. When Mark leaves the Hab and ventures out in the rover, did you feel a loss of security for him? In addition to time, the author uses distance to build suspense. Discuss how.
19. Where would you place The Martian in the canon of classic space exploration films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Apollo 13, and Gravity? What does it have in common with these stories? How is it different?
20. A survival story has to resonate on a universal level to be effective, whether it's set on a desert island or another planet. How important are challenges in keeping life vital? To what extent are our everyday lives about problem-solving and maintaining hope?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Redeployment
Phil Klay, 2014
Penguin Group (USA)
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594204999
Summary
Phil Klay's Redeployment takes readers to the frontlines of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, asking us to understand what happened there, and what happened to the soldiers who returned. Interwoven with themes of brutality and faith, guilt and fear, helplessness and survival, the characters in these stories struggle to make meaning out of chaos.
• In "Redeployment" a soldier who has had to shoot dogs because they were eating human corpses must learn what it is like to return to domestic life in suburbia, surrounded by people "who have no idea where Fallujah is, where three members of your platoon died."
• In "After Action Report", a Lance Corporal seeks expiation for a killing he didn't commit, in order that his best friend will be unburdened.
• In "Bodies," a Morturary Affairs Marine tells about his experiences collecting remains—of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers both.
• In "Praying in a Furnace," a chaplain sees his understanding of Christianity, and his ability to provide solace through religion, tested by the actions of a ferocious Colonel.
• And in the darkly comic "Money as a Weapons System," a young Foreign Service Officer is given the absurd task of helping Iraqis improve their lives by teaching them to play baseball.
These stories reveal the intricate combination of monotony, bureaucracy, comradeship and violence that make up a soldier's daily life at war, and the isolation, remorse, and despair that can accompany a soldier's homecoming.
Redeployment is poised to become a classic in the tradition of war writing. Across nations and continents, Klay sets in devastating relief the two worlds a soldier inhabits: one of extremes and one of loss. Written with a hard-eyed realism and stunning emotional depth, this work marks Phil Klay as one of the most talented new voices of his generation. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1983-84
• Where—White Plains, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Dartmouth College; M.F.A., Hunter College
• Currently—lives in New York, New York
Phil Klay was born in White Plains, NY, and went to high school at the Jesuit school Regis High School, in New York City. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 2005, and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Marine Corps. He deployed to Iraq with the 2nd Marine Logistics Group from January 2007 to February 2008.
He left the Corps in July, 2009, and received his MFA from Hunter College, where he studied with Colum McCann and Peter Carey, and worked as Richard Ford’s research assistant. His first published story, “Redeployment”, appeared in Granta’s Summer 2011 issue. That story led to the sale of his forthcoming collection, which will be published in seven countries. His writing has also appeared in the New York Times, New York Daily News, Tin House, and in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2012. (From the publisher.)
Visit the author's website.
Book Reviews
In Redeployment, Phil Klay, a former Marine who served in Iraq show[s] us the myriad human manifestations that result from the collision of young, heavily armed Americans with a fractured and deeply foreign country that very few of them even remotely understand. Klay succeeds brilliantly, capturing on an intimate scale the ways in which the war in Iraq evoked a unique array of emotion, predicament and heartbreak. In Klay’s hands, Iraq comes across not merely as a theater of war but as a laboratory for the human condition in extremis. “Redeployment” is hilarious, biting, whipsawing and sad. It’s the best thing written so far on what the war did to people’s souls.
Dexter Filkins - New York Times Book Review
(Starred review.) This debut collection of a dozen stories resonates with themes of battle and images of residual battlefield pain and psychological trauma.... It’s clear that Klay, himself a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps who served in Iraq, has parlayed his insider’s knowledge of soldier-bonding and emotional scarring into a collection that proves a powerful statement on the nature of war, violence, and the nuances of human nature.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) The Iraq War and its aftermath is the subject of this powerful and unflinching compendium, which explores the true cost of serving in combat on the human body and, more important, the human psyche.... Harrowing at times and blackly comic at others, the author's first collection could become for the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts what Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried is for the Vietnam War. —Lawrence Rungren, Merrimack Valley Lib. Consortium, Andover, MA
Library Journal
(Starred review.) A sharp set of stories, the author's debut, about U.S. soldiers in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and their aftermaths, with violence and gallows humor dealt out in equal measure. [T]he 12 stories reveal a deep understanding of the tedium, chaos and bloodshed of war, as well as the emotional disorientation that comes with returning home from it.... Klay's grasp of bureaucracy and bitter irony here rivals Joseph Heller and George Orwell.... A no-nonsense and informed reckoning with combat.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Which of the 12 stories most strikes you...and why? Which story do you find most poignant or heart-wrenching? Most brutal or gruesome? Funny or sardonic?
2. Talk about the title story "Redeployment." Does it reflect soldiers' real-world attempts to return to normalcy in civilian life? Is normalcy even possible, given what they have witnessed and/or participated in? What is your experience—either as a returning soldier or as someone who has known, or perhaps read about, a returning soldier?
3. What does the story "In Money as a Weapons System" suggest about bureaucratic bumbling with regards to the government's war efforts?
4. Discuss the story "OIF" and the military's list of alphabet-soup acronymns. Why are such nondescriptive and impersonal terms used? How would you desribe the narrative tone of the story?
5. How has the chaplain's faith, in "Praying in the Furnace," been challenged by his experiences of the war?
6. What is the overall sense of the war in Iraq that you (personally) take away from these stories? In a Short Form interview, Klay said that there are books in which...
war is where men will glory, or a tragi-comic farce, or a quasi-mystical experience, or a product of corporate interests, or a noble sacrifice for freedom, or meaningless suffering, or mundane and kind of boring, or the place where boys become men, or where men become traumatized victims, or where green soldiers become fearsome killers. I could go on.
How is war portrayed in these stories? Does the depiction of war differ from story to story?
7. How did Phil Klay’s choice of first person narration affect your reading experience? What did you think of his use of various, and quite different, narrators? does the lack of Iraqi voices in these stories add to or detract from your reading experience?
8. In what ways does knowing Klay is a former marine who served in Iraq inform your understanding of, and emotional connection to, these stories? How might your reading experience have been different if he had not served?
9. What do you think Phil Klay achieved by writing short stories instead of a novel?
10. If you've read other modern war novels or stories (The Naked and the Dead, Catch 22, Slaughterhouse Five, The Things They Carried, Billy Lynn's Long Half-Time Walk, Yellow Birds, or others), how does Redeployment compare? Is the war in Iraq different from other wars the U.S. has fought?
(Questions by both LitLovers and the publisher. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
What She Left Behind
Ellen Marie Wiseman, 2013
Kensington
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780758278456
Summary
In this stunning new novel, the acclaimed author of The Plum Tree merges the past and present into a haunting story about the nature of love and loyalty—and the lengths we will go to protect those who need us most.
Ten years ago, Izzy Stone's mother fatally shot her father while he slept. Devastated by her mother's apparent insanity, Izzy, now seventeen, refuses to visit her in prison.
But her new foster parents, employees at the local museum, have enlisted Izzy's help in cataloging items at a long-shuttered state asylum. There, amid piles of abandoned belongings, Izzy discovers a stack of unopened letters, a decades-old journal, and a window into her own past.
Clara Cartwright, eighteen years old in 1929, is caught between her overbearing parents and her love for an Italian immigrant. Furious when she rejects an arranged marriage, Clara's father sends her to a genteel home for nervous invalids. But when his fortune is lost in the stock market crash, he can no longer afford her care--and Clara is committed to the public asylum.
Even as Izzy deals with the challenges of yet another new beginning, Clara's story keeps drawing her into the past. If Clara was never really mentally ill, could something else explain her own mother's violent act? Piecing together Clara's fate compels Izzy to re-examine her own choices—with shocking and unexpected results.
Illuminating and provocative, What She Left Behind is a masterful novel about the yearning to belong—and the mysteries that can belie even the most ordinary lifes. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1961-62
• Where—Three Mile Bay, New York, USA
• Education—Lyme Central School
• Currently—lives on Lake Ontario in upstate New York
Ellen Marie Wiseman discovered her love of reading and writing while attending first grade in one of the last one-room schoolhouses in upper New York State.
Her debut novel The Plum Tree—a WWII story about a young German woman trying to save the love of her life, a Jewish man—was inspired by her mother's childhood in Germany during the Second World War. The book was published in 2013.
Wiseman's second novel, What She Left Behind, published in 2014, centers on the now-shuttered Willard Asylum for the Insane in Ovid, near Seneca Lake, New York, and involves a woman wrongly committed.
Coal River, Wiseman's 2016 novel, revolves around the efforts of a young woman to help at-risk workers in the Pennsylvania col mines.
The Life She Was Given, released in 2017, tells the story of two sisters: Lilly who is sold to the circus in 1931, and the other, years later, who inherits the family farm.
Originally from Three Mile Bay, New York, Wiseman lives on Lake Ontario with her husband. (Adapted from the publisher.)
Visit the author's website.
Book Reviews
The dearth of complex characters is overshadowed by the intensity of Clara and Izzy's life circumstances and internal struggles. Both stories are relentlessly bleak; Wiseman makes no attempt to sugarcoat what Izzy and Clara go through, representing them as strong women who are determined not to succumb to their challenges. For the shocking characterization of early insane asylums and compelling connection between Izzy and Clara, this novel would be a valuable addition to most school and public libraries. —Lindy Gerdes
VOYA
Discussion Questions
1. When Izzy first arrives at Willard, she’s afraid to go inside the old buildings because they remind her of visiting her mother in the psychiatric ward. She also has a difficult time handling the contents of the old suitcases because they remind her of the dead and dying. Some people would find the abandoned asylum fascinating, while others would stay away. Would you want to go inside the buildings? Would you want to go through the old suitcases?
2. Before coming to live with Peg and Harry, Izzy cut herself to deal with her emotions. Self-harm is most common in adolescence and young adulthood, usually appearing between the ages of twelve and twenty-four. Have you ever heard of self-injury as a way of dealing with emotional pain, anger, and frustration? Why do you think some people hurt themselves as a way of coping? What do you think would have happened to Izzy if she had lived during Clara’s time?
3. Displaying opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to a mother’s protective instinct, Izzy’s mother shoots her father to protect her, while Shannon’s and Clara’s mothers do nothing to protect them. Discuss the maternal instinct. Do you think it’s stronger in some women than in others? Do you think the difference is due to circumstances, as in the way women are brought up, or do you think the difference is due to genetics?
4. Clara tries everything she can think of to get out of Willard. Is there anything else she could have tried?
5. New York State has sealed the medical records of former mental patients, even denying access to the descendents. Why do you think they remain sealed? Do you think this law should be changed?
6. How do you think Izzy changed over the course of the novel? How did Clara change? What were the most important events that facilitated those changes?
7. At first, Dr. Roach truly believes Clara needs help, partly because of Clara’s father’s stories, and partly due to the era, when emotional outbursts were often seen as a sign of mental illness. Why do you think Dr. Roach refused to release Clara even though Bruno confirmed the truth about why she was there? Why do you think Dr. Roach committed Bruno to the asylum? Do you think Dr. Roach was more worried about his reputation and his job, or concealing the fact that he took Clara’s child?
8. Izzy refused to visit her mother in prison because she was afraid. Do you think she was angry with her mother, or just sad and scared?
9. Clara refused to go along with the arranged marriage to James because she was in love with Bruno. She had no idea her father would send her to an insane asylum. Hindsight is always 20/20 and, in Clara’s time, women were still subject to the whims of their husbands and fathers, but what would you have done in that situation? Would you have obeyed your parents’ wishes and married James? Would you have continued seeing Bruno?
10. Bruno had no idea Clara was at the Long Island Home because he never received her letters. Izzy couldn’t understand why her mother shot her father until she read her mother’s letters. Can you think of an instance in your life that would have turned out differently if you’d had more information? Do you think most people jump to conclusions, or that they try to find out all sides of a story?
11. Nurse Trench presented a tough exterior while hiding a soft interior. How did you feel about her when you first met her? How did you feel about her when she was an old woman? Do you think Nurse Trench could have tried harder to help Clara while she was at Willard? What could she have done?
12. Izzy feels like nothing will ever change when it comes to bullying. What do you think? What can be done to make those changes? Do you think we’ve made progress when it comes to bullying, or do you think things have gotten worse?
13. Clara is sterilized after she gives birth, because Dr. Roach felt it was his duty to keep her from passing along “inferior” genes. Do you think it was right for doctors to make that decision for patients who were considered mentally ill? Do you think the government should have a say in who can and cannot reproduce? How far do you think we’ve come when it comes to a woman’s reproductive rights and the right to choose?
14. Bruno had to nail Clara inside a coffin for them to have a chance to escape. Would you have been able to stand being nailed inside a coffin if it meant a chance to be free?
15. During the flood in the electroshock therapy room, someone grabs Clara underwater. Who do you think it was? 16. Do you think reuniting Clara with her daughter helped Izzy heal? In what way? How do you think Clara felt when she saw her daughter?
17. What She Left Behind is composed of two interweaving story lines—Clara’s in the past and Izzy’s quest in present day. Discuss the structure of each narrative. Did you enjoy the alternating stories and time frames? What are the strengths and drawbacks of this format?
18. Which “voice” did you prefer, Izzy’s or Clara’s? Is one more or less authentic than the other? If you could meet one of the two characters, which one would you choose?
19. How are Clara and Izzy the same? How are they different?
20. What do you think Izzy’s future looks like? What about Clara and her daughter’s future?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Plum Tree
Ellen Marie Wiseman, 2012
Kensington
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780758278432
Summary
"Bloom where you're planted," is the advice Christine Bolz receives from her beloved Oma.
But seventeen-year-old domestic Christine knows there is a whole world waiting beyond her small German village. It's a world she's begun to glimpse through music, books—and through Isaac Bauerman, the cultured son of the wealthy Jewish family she works for.
Yet the future she and Isaac dream of sharing faces greater challenges than their difference in stations. In the fall of 1938, Germany is changing rapidly under Hitler's regime. Anti-Jewish posters are everywhere, dissenting talk is silenced, and a new law forbids Christine from returning to her job—and from having any relationship with Isaac.
In the months and years that follow, Christine will confront the Gestapo's wrath and the horrors of Dachau, desperate to be with the man she loves, to survive—and finally, to speak out.
Set against the backdrop of the German homefront, this is an unforgettable novel of courage and resolve, of the inhumanity of war, and the heartbreak and hope left in its wake. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1961-62
• Where—Three Mile Bay, New York, USA
• Education—Lyme Central School
• Currently—lives on Lake Ontario in upstate New York
Ellen Marie Wiseman discovered her love of reading and writing while attending first grade in one of the last one-room schoolhouses in upper New York State.
Her debut novel The Plum Tree—a WWII story about a young German woman trying to save the love of her life, a Jewish man—was inspired by her mother's childhood in Germany during the Second World War. The book was published in 2013.
Wiseman's second novel, What She Left Behind, published in 2014, centers on the now-shuttered Willard Asylum for the Insane in Ovid, near Seneca Lake, New York, and involves a woman wrongly committed.
Coal River, Wiseman's 2016 novel, revolves around the efforts of a young woman to help at-risk workers in the Pennsylvania col mines.
The Life She Was Given, released in 2017, tells the story of two sisters: Lilly who is sold to the circus in 1931, and the other, years later, who inherits the family farm.
Originally from Three Mile Bay, New York, Wiseman lives on Lake Ontario with her husband. (Adapted from the publisher.)
Visit the author's website.
Book Reviews
This title is an extraordinary debut novel in which the author's childhood trips visiting family in Germany impart a heartbreaking realism. A Holocaust story told from the unlikely perspective of a German teenage girl in love with a Jewish boy, it explores the horrors and fears of innocent citizens on the homefront, as well as the risks they were willing to take to do the right thing. Ultimately a story of human survival and enduring love despite insurmountable odds, it's an original and important addition to the World War II canon. (4.5 stars, TOP PICK!)
RT Book Reviews
The Plum Tree is a beautifully written first novel. Not every non-Jew in Germany in the 1930s was a Nazis; far from it. The Plum Tree follows a family torn by feelings of patriotism for their country and the growing Nazi terror darkening their doorstep...
Ellen Marie Wiseman weaves a story of intrigue, terror, and love from a perspective not often seen in Holocaust novels.
Jewish Book World
The Plum Tree will find good company on the literal or electronic shelves of those who appreciated Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian, Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay, and Night by Elie Wiesel. Though in the same picture frame as these great classics, Ms. Wiseman's story stands firmly on its own two feet and deserves a bright spotlight on the literary stage.
New York Journal of Books
Christine Bölz is living in a German village at the beginning of the Third Reich, where she and her family work as domestics for the Jewish Bauermans.... Wiseman eschews the genre’s usual military conflicts in favor of the slow, inexorable pressure of daily life during wartime, lending an intimate and compelling poignancy to this intriguing debut.
Publishers Weekly
Christine Bolz bask[s] in her new relationship with Isaac Bauerman, son of the wealthy Jewish family in whose house she works as a domestic servant. The glow of their new love is quickly tested as...restrictions are placed on interactions between Jews and non-Jews.... Readers who like slower-paced sentimental novels set during WWII will enjoy this novel. —Eve Gaus
Booklist
Discussion Questions
1. Christine and her family were not members of the Nazi Party. When the war started in 1939, the population of Germany was over 80 million, with 5.3 million being members of the Nazi Party. The party reached its peak in 1945 with 8 million members. Many of these were nominal members who joined for careerist reasons, but the party had an active membership of at least a million, including virtually all the holders of senior positions in the national government. Not all Germans or all military were party members. Does this surprise you? Did you think all Germans were members of the Nazi Party? What do you think most people believe? Why?
2. Christine works as a domestic for a Jewish family, where she falls in love with Isaac. What brings them together? What do you think it was like the first time they met? Do you think they fell in love instantly or over time? How do you think Isaac felt about her family, knowing how the Nazis felt about Jews? Do you think Christine was envious of his family’s wealth, or did she give it little thought?
3. The first anti-Jewish poster Christine sees explains who is a Jew and who isn’t, and forbids Jews to enter public places like banks and post offices. It is said that Hitler drew his first ideas about how to treat the Jews from blacks being denied civil rights in the South. What do you think are the differences? Why was the KKK kept in check while the Nazis were not?
4. Christine offers to hide Isaac before the Nazis take him and his family away. Would you have taken the opportunity to go with her, or would you have stayed with your family? Do you think Isaac’s decision was based on loyalty to his parents and sister, or was it made because he thought they’d be okay since he had no idea how bad it was going to get?
5. The Nazis said they were going to “relocate” the Jews. What if this was happening where you live? How far would you be willing to go to protect your friends and neighbors? Would you risk your life or the lives of your children to save someone else?
6. We live in a world where global news and information is instant. During WWII in Nazi Germany, public information was manipulated and limited. Propaganda was used to sway public opinion. There were only two Nazi-run newspapers available, and the Nazis controlled the radio. Listening to foreign broadcasts was a crime punishable by death. After the Nazis were defeated, most Germans found out by word of mouth that Roosevelt had died, that the Wehrmacht had unconditionally surrendered, and that the atom bomb had been dropped on Japan. How do you think the availability of information affects the way people think and act? Do you think the Holocaust could have been stopped if information had been more readily available? Do you think the war would have ended sooner? What differences would better access to information have made?
7. Lagerkommandant Grünstein is loosely based on a real SS officer, Kurt Gerstein, who tried to tell the world what the Nazis were doing. After the war, Gerstein turned himself over to the French and gave them a detailed account of what had happened in the camps. Before his trial, he was found dead. There is some speculation that other imprisoned SS might have killed him. If he’d been given the chance to go to trial, should he have been punished with the rest of the SS or set free?
8. Christine thinks of her mother as key to their survival and the last thread to anything familiar and normal. From food in their stomachs to clean clothes and warm baths, Mutti provided the only bits of comfort to be had. During the war, Germany was made up of women, children, and old people struggling to survive food shortages and air raids while the men were off fighting. What do you think it was like in Germany for the women left behind? What differences would there have been between single women and those with children to take care of? At one point Christine mentions that some women sell themselves to feed their children. How far would you go to keep yourself and your children alive?
9. How do you think Christine changed over the course of the novel? What about Isaac, Maria, Heinrich, and Karl? Even though siblings are raised together, sometimes they turn out differently. What differences do you see in Christine and Maria? Heinrich and Karl?
10. Christine and the Lagerkommandant talk about what the prisoners will do to stay alive, from spying on each other to pushing their fellow Jews into the ovens to burn. How far would you go to stay alive in a place like Dachau? Do you think you would be strong enough to keep going like Hanna and Christine, or do you think you’d give up?
11. The Americans bombed Christine’s village and shot at her and her little brother. How do you think she felt when they occupied her village? Do you think she saw them as saviors or monsters? Why?
12. When Christine and Isaac are sent to Dachau, she worries that he has lost his will to live. Discuss the will to live. Do you think it’s the same for everyone, or is it stronger in some than others?
13. Discuss the significance of the plum tree. What does it symbolize, both as a pit when it’s first planted and later, as a blossoming sapling at the end of the book?
14. Do you think Christine and Isaac’s secret meetings are romantic or frightening? Do you think fear of the future made their love stronger and more passionate? They didn’t have sex because they were afraid she would become pregnant. Do you think that is realistic, or do you think the author used it to add more tension to the story? When Isaac puts an end to their meetings, Christine only tries to see him twice. Would you have agreed to wait and see what happened, or would you have gone to his house more often, Gestapo or no Gestapo?
15. Mutti agrees to put food out for the passing Jewish prisoners even though it’s dangerous and she can barely feed her family. Why do you think she does it? Would you have done the same thing? 16. When the Gestapo finds Isaac in Christine’s attic, they spare the rest of her family out of respect for her father’s military service. Do you think that would have happened, or do you think they would have shot her family or taken them all away?
17. After the war, Christine’s friend Kate doesn’t believe her when Christine tells her about the camps and Stefan’s role as an SS guard. Do you think Kate is in denial because she is in love and wants to get married, or do you think she really doesn’t believe Christine? When Christine tries to expose Stefan in church, again no one wants to believe her. Do you think people were in denial, were too busy with their own problems, or just didn’t want to talk about it? Do you think they felt guilty?
18. When Christine gets off the train from Dachau, she doesn’t realize where she is. How do you think Christine felt when she realized she was already home? How do you think she felt when she saw her house was still standing and her family was alive? How do you think it feels to survive something so horrific when so many others didn’t? She tastes the grass in the goat’s milk and thinks even chickens are beautiful. Do you think almost dying makes a person more aware and grateful for the little things?
19. Maria hates herself because the Russians raped her. She thinks no one will ever love her. When she finds out she is pregnant, she is devastated. Do you think she died by accident trying to get rid of the baby, or do you think she killed herself? What would you have done in her situation?
20. If Christine hadn’t found out Isaac was alive, do you think she would have ended up with Jake? Do you think she would have left her family to go to America? What would Christine’s and Jake’s future have looked like?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris
Jenny Colgan, 2013
Sourcebooks
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781402284403
Summary
Inside Paris's premiere chocolate shop, sometimes dreams really can come true.
It's true that Anna Trent is a supervisor in a chocolate factory...but that doesn't necessarily mean she knows how to make chocolate. And when a fateful accident gives her the opportunity to work at Paris's elite chocolatier Le Chapeau Chocolat, Anna expects to be outed as a fraud. After all, there is a world of difference between chalky, mass-produced English chocolate and the gourmet confections Anna's new boss creates.
But with a bit of luck and a lot of patience, Anna might learn that the sweetest things in life are always worth working for. Hopeful, laugh-out-loud funny, and irresistibly addictive, The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris is a novel worth savoring. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 1, 1972
• Where—Prestwick, Ayrshire, Scotland, UK
• Education—University of Edinburgh
• Awards—Romantic Novelists' Association's Romantic Novel of the Year
• Currently—lives in France and London, England
Jenny Colgan is a British chick-lit writer of romantic comedies since 2000. She also used the pseudonym Jane Beaton and J. T. Colgan for other fiction. In 2013, her novel Welcome to Rosie Hopkin's Sweetshop of Dreams won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the .
In 2000, she published her first novel, iniating a string romantic comedies. In 2013, her novel Welcome to Rosie Hopkin's Sweetshop of Dreams won the Romantic Novelists' Association's Romantic Novel of the Year Award . In July 2012 her Doctor Who tie-in novel Dark Horizons was published under the name J. T. Colgan.
Personal life
Jenny Colgan was born in 1972 in Prestwick, Ayrshire, Scotland, British. She studied at Edinburgh University. She worked for six years in the health service, moonlighting as a cartoonist and a stand-up comic.
She is married to Andrew, a marine engineer, and has had three children. She divides her time between France and London.
Novels
• Stand Alone
Amanda's Wedding (2000)
Looking for Andrew McCarthy (2001)
Talking to Addison (2001)
Working Wonders (2003) aka Arthur Project
Do You Remember the First Time? (2004) aka The Boy I Loved Before
Sixteen Again (2004)
Where Have All the Boys Gone? (2005)
West End Girls (2006)
Operation Sunshine (2007)
Diamonds Are A Girls Best Friend (2008)
The Good, the Bad and the Dumped (2010)
The Loveliest Chocolate Shop In Paris (2013)
The Little Beach Street Bakery (2014)
• Cupcake Cafe
Meet me at the Cupcake Cafe (2011)
Christmas at the Cupcake Cafe (2012)
• Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop
Welcome to Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop of Dreams (2012)
Christmas at Rosie Hopkins Sweet Shop (2013)
• As Jane Beaton
Maggie, a Teacher In Turmoil
Class (2008)
Rules (2010)
• J. T. Colgan
Doctor Who: Dark Horizons (2012)
(Author bio from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/21/2014.)
Book Reviews
Parallel love stories play out in Paris a generation apart in this funny, lyrical story from U.K.—based chick-lit writer Colgan... This cross-generational story is as irresistible as Colgan's portrayal of Paris itself—and all things chocolate.
Publishers Weekly
Colgan has created a story where love and baked goods are central to the story and sweet endings are a must. Her characters are both believable and funny, while the Parisian setting makes this story practically irresistible.
Shelf Awareness Reader
You can't go wrong with Jenny Colgan books. She's the queen of British chick lit.
American Cupcake Life
The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris will have you laughing one moment and crying the next... will entertain you at every turn. 4 Stars
Romance Times Book Reviews
Heartwarming and funny.... Delightful and compassionate, this will resonate with readers of women's fiction. Chocolate recipes from the author, listed in the back of the book, add to its charm.
Booklist
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)