It’s Monday, What Are You Reading? 1-30-23

The Motion of the Body Through Space by Lionel Shriver

Shriver’s essential bugbear is that, taken to extremes, the concept of cultural appropriation prohibits the act of fiction writing itself: “If writers have to restrict their imagination to personal experience,” she has stated, “the only option left is memoir.” The grand irony of course is that The Motion of the Body Through Space is a novel drawn from the first-hand experience of a writer who monitors her frequency of star jumps and has been on the receiving end of a pasting for her views on diversity. Certainly it’s problematic – but few authors can be as entertainingly problematic as Shriver. — The Guardian

Currently Not Reading

The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt

The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt was my first book of 2023, but I had to set it aside temporarily last week, because I was too close to the end to pack it for a trip to England, but too far from the end to finish it before I left. (Writing this post in the airport, totally exhausted, waiting for the return flight to Boston, so please forgive any mistakes!

We had less than one full day of sightseeing in London, where The Last Samurai is set. We did ride the Tube a lot, though, and a number of scenes are set on the subway trains and in the stations of London’s Underground.

We didn’t have time for museums, libraries or bookstores because London was just a brief stop on our trip to Blackpool. Someday I’d like to go back and do a walking tour like this one suggested on the A Lady in London blog:

Lady’s Self-Guided London Literary Walk and Map

Currently Listening To

Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen

“Narrator Catherine Ho delivers a stellar performance of this fast-paced caper audiobook.” — AudioFile (full review here)

Currently Not Listening To

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

This award-winning Audible-exclusive audiobook is hard to get through the library in downloadable format! 😡

I finally borrowed Project Hail Mary as a Playaway, which is an all-in-one audiobook and battery-operated mini player. It’s inconvenient compared to having audiobooks on my phone, but replacement cost if I lost the item in my travels was $100, so I left it safely at home to be picked up where I left off.

Recently Listened To

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

“Tamsyn Muir’s absorbing storytelling and Moira Quirk’s immersive performance create a richly imagined fantasy world…Quirk is at turns antagonistic, vulnerable, and hopelessly helpful as she characterizes all the participants and stewards of Canaan House…Winner of the AudioFile Eaprhones Award.” —AudioFile

It had been a few months since I had this audiobook from the library and didn’t finish it in time, but the voice of the narrator (meaning both the audiobook narrator and the first-person narrator of the story) brought it all right back to mind. Now I’m waiting for Harrow the Ninth, second in the Locked Tomb fantasy series.

Please let me know what you’re reading in the comments!

This post is linked to “It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?” hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date. Check out the link-up party there for more book lists!