Five-Star Paradox

March 11: “He was a great thundering paradox of a man, noble and ignoble, inspiring and outrageous, arrogant and shy, the best of men and the worst of men…”  

The Martian

Andy Weir’s stirring paean to the will to survive finds a castaway on the Red Planet, as astronaut Mark Watney outdoes Jules Verne, Tom Swift and George Clooney in his quest to live and even flourish in this forbidding environment.

The Big Both Ways

From its Chandleresque title right through its knockout climax, John Straley’s Depression-era noir provides hot and heavy, morally complicated thrills as it tosses a male drifter and female murderer together on a bumpy ride across the American Northwest.