The Martian - Andy Weir

     The Martian is Andy Weir's first novel and I think everyone should read this. Whether or not you are into science fiction books, this novel is so realistic and uplifting that you will read it in a day or two. *Also they are making it into a movie*
     In the book a team lands on Mars to do research into eventually creating a colony on the planet. When a huge storm goes through their camp astronaut Mark Watney is blown away from the group. The group thinking he is dead makes the difficult decision to leave Mars and return home. What you find out about Mark Watney is that he is still alive, that he is one clever man, and that his sense of humor will never fail him. After being deserted on the planet Mars with a lack of communication from Earth, Mark finds ways of surviving. As a reader, you are seeing everything from Mark's eyes or basically from his journal entries. I think as a reader you could look at this novel in two different ways. The first way is your truly just looking at Mark's fight for survival with his witty commentary lighting things up along the way. The second way of looking at this book is from the view of how small we really are in the grand scheme of things, but as people we must stick together. On Earth, we see ourselves as individual unique persons, but remove yourself from this planet and you see an entire species of people. No matter how different we are from the person next to us, in the end we are all the same. With help from China and a self-sacrificing team that turned around for him, NASA finds a solution to get Mark off Mars. You see people bonding together to help one stranded guy because no one wants to see him die. But really, no one wants to think that if they were in Mark's position that the entire human race would abandon him to die out there. This book definitely has a sort of existential overlaying tones to it, but I guess any book that takes place in space would have the same. Looking at the greater universe only ever emphasizes just how small we really are.