Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Explore Books in Aspen recommends a sci-fi mystery, a true story of human trafficking and a George Saunders collection.
Project Hail Mary: A Novel
By Andy Weir
Ballentine Books
$22
October 2022
Purchase
From the publisher: Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission — and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.
All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.
His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery — and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.
Or does he?
From Alec Sprague, staff: Reading this book is like reliving the curiosity of childhood. As he recovers from amnesia, you discover the main character’s sense of identity, strengths and weaknesses, and purpose as he does. I really enjoyed this story and could not put it down.
The Great Escape: A True Story of Forced Labor and Immigrant Dreams in America
By Saket Soni
Algonquin Books
$19.99
January 2024
Purchase
From the publisher: In late 2006, Saket Soni, an Indian-born community organizer, received an anonymous phone call from an Indian migrant worker in Mississippi. He was one of five hundred men trapped in squalid Gulf Coast “man camps,” surrounded by barbed wire, crammed into cold trailers, and watched by guards. The men had scraped up $20,000 each for this “opportunity” to rebuild hurricane-wrecked oil rigs in return for promised green cards. Soni and the workers devised a bold plan: The Great Escape traces the workers’ extraordinary escape, their march on foot to Washington, D.C., and their 23-day hunger strike to bring attention to their cause.
Weaving a deeply personal journey with a riveting tale of 21st-century forced labor, Soni takes us into the lives of the immigrant workers the United States increasingly relies on to rebuild after climate disasters. “The Great Escape” is the gripping story of one of the largest human trafficking cases in modern American history — and the workers’ heroic journey for justice.
From Katrina Nelson, staff: I picked up this book during the Aspen Ideas Festival and started reading it after meeting the author. I learned something that I never knew, which felt incredibly important to understand, and it’s written by someone who is both empathetic and direct about the situation. Really well written and reminded me of why I read literature.
In Persuasion Nation
By George Saunders
Riverhead Books
$17
March 2007
Purchase
From the publisher: From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Man Booker Prize-winning novel “Lincoln in the Bardo” and the story collection “Tenth of December,” a 2013 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction. Talking candy bars, baby geniuses, disappointed mothers, castrated dogs, interned teenagers, and moral fables—all in this hilarious and heartbreaking collection from an author hailed as the heir to Kurt Vonnegut and Thomas Pynchon.
From R.J. Cross, staff: George Saunders’ short story collection “In Persuasion Nation” is a handbook for surviving a world of relentless commercialism without losing your dignity, compassion, and sense of meaning. In his exaggerated consumer hellscapes, Saunders holds up a mirror to today’s economy and asks us if this is what we really want. It’s wickedly funny, deeply tender and full of small acts of resistance that give you hope.
THIS WEEK’S BOOK RECS COME FROM:
Explore Booksellers
221 E. Main St., Aspen
(970) 925-5336
As part of The Colorado Sun’s literature section — SunLit — we’re featuring staff picks from book stores across the state. Read more.
Type of Story: Review
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