NURUL AZIZ: BOOK

March 22, 2020 37 comments

December 07, 2019 6 comments

February 25, 2018 9 comments

Assalamualaikum. Hi.

It is Endurance by Scott Kelly! The parcel arrived on Thursday and I start reading it later that night after almost 15 minutes of admiring and smelling the book. Hahaha. Had been waiting for this one since March. I'm 1/4 thru the book and so far it's great as expected. . #endurance #endurancescottkelly #scottkelly #booktoread #nunureads

A post shared by Reading Hut (@readinghut) on Nov 10, 2017 at 10:06pm PST

As I mentioned in my book Instagram (Reading Hut), I had been waiting for this book since Scott Kelly announced it. I was so excited when I find out there's an astronaut who lived aboard ISS for a year. By that time, it was near the end of that one year period so I was looking forward to his landing.

ABOUT THE BOOK (Goodreads)

Click Goodreads link above if you wish to read about this book from professional point of view. Hahaha. This book is written by Scott Kelly, NASA astronaut who spent a year in space. Scott wrote about his childhood, teenage life and his career choices that eventually lead him to become an astronaut. He also wrote about his one year journey on ISS. How he felt and cope with everything in that long period.

FUN FACTS

1. Scott Kelly has a twin brother, Mark Kelly who is also a retired astronaut, engineer and navy captain. Talking about twin bonding huh. When he commit for the one year long space flight, it also mean he agreed to become the specimen to identify effects of long term space flight on human for the rest of his life. But NASA never intended to use his twin brother in the experiment. Only when he blurted out in an interview that he saw this as an opportunity for the scientist because his twin brother could be the controlled specimen on Earth, only then NASA decided to include his brother as part of the specimen. If they were a normal twin brother, imagine Mark rage. Hahaha. But this is no ordinary twins we are talking about so I really don't know Mark's reaction and I'm dying to know.

NASA SENT ONE IDENTICAL TWIN BROTHER TO SPACE ← read about the first results of the experiment.

2. Scott Kelly wasn't alone on his journey for the record breaking of yearlong stay aboard because he's with a Russian cosmonaut, Mikhail Korneinko

3. The ISS sees sunrise every 90 minutes. That mean astronaut witness 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets. They could enjoy these views from seven windows of Cupola module. Or they could enjoy them outside during spacewalk, that if they are not busy concentrating the tasks on their hands which I believe require high concentration.

Cupola module. Picture credit NASA

WHAT I LIKE

1. Scott's sense of humor. Space traveling is not a joke but I love it how Scott Kelly inject witty remarks here and there making the reader feel closer and a part of his journey. He wore a gorilla suit his twin brother sent him inside his care-package once during that yearlong mission and give few laugh to his fellow colleagues.

2. His principle are so relatable.

"But I had decided a long time before always to say yes to whatever challenge came my way"

I mean you won't go anywhere if you refuse to take risk and hiding from problems and avoid challenges, no?

"It's important to me to admit mistakes immediately, and I don't make excuses"

Because defending yourself from your own mistakes is not cool. And you won't learn anything from it. What a waste, right

3. This book is about space and human journey on space exploration and if you don't know yet, I'm a sucker for anything outer space hahaha.

WHAT I DON'T LIKE

During Scott Kelly navy period of life. Don't get me wrong. It's his life journey and it's part of reasons why and how he ended up as an astronaut so it deserved spot in the book. But I know nothing about fighter jet and navy's life so those were parts I can't relate.

RATING

8/10

What's the last book you read?

January 28, 2018 6 comments

Assalamualaikum. Hi.

Current read and as expected I'm obsessed with this book. Almost at each page I need to stop and admire the writer. It's not easy to write a sci-fi and make sure the facts are correct (of course there are few inaccurate things). Since I already watched the movie, I could only imagine Matt Damon as Mark Watney. Oh, by the way NASA reveiwed the movie script so there goes me drooling again. How does it feel to be a writer of the book checked by NASA? Well NASA only reviewed the movie script but the script were from the book. Major love for this book 10 out of 5 stars. Hahaha #nunureads #themartian #andyweir #andyweirthemartian #bookstagram

A post shared by Reading Hut (@readinghut) on Feb 4, 2017 at 3:26am PST

I ranted about this book in almost all of my social medias. Picture above is from my book instagram, Reading Hut. Click if you would like to follow 😉 but I warn you, I don't update much because I don't read much nowadays. Sad, I know.

I'm sure most people are familiar with its movie which titled the same. Even if you don't watch it, how could you not notice when every billboards in Klang Valley were printed with Matt Damon's fullscreen face? Okay I might exaggerate a bit there. But if you haven't watch this movie, stop reading right now, go watch it, comeback here and let's fangirling together later. I re-watched the movie few months ago and I searched high and low for this book since then. Well not really because the first thing I did was to check MPH Online. Since I forgot my MPH Online's username and password so I went straight to MPH NU Sentral to get my copy. Now about this book;

ABOUT THE BOOK (Goodreads)

You can click Goodreads link above. If you prefer a synopsis from my point of view, behold! This book is about Mark Watney, an astronaut who stranded on Mars alone after all his crew mates safely evacuated after a massive dust storm. His crew mates thought he was dead because they lost communication with Watney's bio monitor on his suit during the evacuation. Turns out Watney was knocked by the satellite dish and antenna of the satellite dish pierced into him leaving him injured and lost contact with Earth. Even with very low chance to survive, he didn't quit. He overcame each of every obstacles Mars threw at him using his engineering and botany skills.

FUN FACTS

1. About the author - Andy Weir worked on this book for about three years making sure the science was as accurate as possible. He first published this book for free on his blog for fun. Then people asked him to put it in a downloadable form, then to put it on Amazon for Kindle download which he did and charged his reader $0.99. Later did he knew it was one of Amazon's top five science fiction bestsellers and later The New York Times bestseller list. He wasn't a professional scientist nor a professional writer when he wrote the book. He was a software programmer who read rocket science for fun. He studies orbital dynamics as a hobby. He wrote his own computer programs using real Earth and Mars alignment data to determine the best theoretical date for the Ares 3 mission to launch

2. Even though Andy Weir tried to make the facts accurate, there's one glaring exception; the storm that caused everything. Mars atmosphere is too thin to drum such strong winds. For the movie, the producer sent the script to NASA. NASA make a note about that after they reviewed the script. But they cannot come out with alternative scenario. So NASA said, what the hell, it's only a movie. Okay I made up the last sentence but NASA just let that one go.

3. Mark Watney has two Masters degrees. One in botany and one in mechanical engineering. In reality, all astronauts are cross-trained so that they can assist in with any tasks that comes up in a mission.

WHAT I LIKE

1. Mark Watney's will to stay alive. There's this one quote inside the book. I even highlighted that part. "Let's take them one at a time". We could apply this in our life you know. When problems hits us, face them one at a time. There's no way we could settle them all in one go (unless the problems are chained to each other).

2. Mark Watney's sense of humor. I mean he was so funny I giggled sometimes and laughed like a retard sea lion most of the time. He actually fit my dream guy description, exceptionally clever and funny. Here's some quote from the book;

"I started the day with some nothin' tea. Nothin's tea is easy to make. First, get some hot water, then add nothin'"

"Me: This is obviously a clog. How about I take it apart and check the internal tubing?

NASA: (after five hours of deliberation) No. You'll fuck it up and die.

So I took it apart

"You know what? "Kilowatt-hour per sol" is a pain in the ass to say. I'm gonna invent a new scientific unit name. One kilowatt-hour per sol is... it can be anything... um... I suck at this.. I'll call it a "pirate-ninja"."

3. The fact that this book fall in science fiction category but I still can read it thanks to the movie. I never read science fiction book before just because I have bad imagination when it comes to things I never see.

WHAT I DON'T LIKE

1. All the mathematics and technical thingy parts. I hate numbers and I find it hard to imagine most of the technical parts. I know, I have no idea how I become engineer. But no surprise there as to why I'm not an astronaut.

RATING

8/10

Any suggestion on similar books you think I should read?

April 08, 2017 No comments

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