It’s Monday, What Are You Reading? 2-6-23

Currently Reading

The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt

I plan to finish The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt this week, at last! I came back from London with not only heavy jet lag but a bad cold that put me out of commission for three straight days after getting home, and I wasn’t able to read that much.

Thank goodness for audiobooks!

The Talking Drum by Lisa Braxton

Jungle Red Writers has a great interview with Hallie Ephron and author Lisa Braxton — Learning to Drum: Lisa Braxton’s The Talking Drum.

The author of The Talking Drum, Lisa Braxton is a Massachusetts writer who stunningly overcame the misfortune of having her first novel be released just as the pandemic hit. She has had numerous speaking engagements and the book has received several awards, including Shelf Unbound Best Independently Published Book of 2020.

It’s even set in a fictionalized version of my current hometown, so it’s a perfect fit for the February Massachusetts Center for the Book Challenge and also for Black History Month.

Recently Read

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

Lionel Shriver’s books take on an issue and turn it around and around, presenting all sides of the matter in rational, emotional, and usually caustically humorous detail – making every side seem equally reasonable or unreasonable – without revealing within the novel itself which side she, as the author, would come down on.

Currently Listening To

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

• Winner of the 2022 Audie Awards’ Audiobook of the Year
• Number-One Audible and New York Times Audio Best Seller
• More than one million audiobooks sold
  A lone astronaut must save the earth from disaster in this incredible new science-based thriller from the number-one New York Times best-selling author of The Martian.

I’m in the home stretch of Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. It’s 16 hours and 10 minutes long, and the often whiny, sorry-for-himself astronaut has been fitting company for me as I was stuck in bed. At first, I wasn’t sure I was going to like it as much as The Martian, but the story took an intriguing turn, and Ray Porter as the audiobook narrator is really all I needed to know, anyway!

Recently Listened To

Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen

“Make no mistake, Counterfeit is an entertaining, luxurious read — but beneath its glitz and flash, it is also a shrewd deconstruction of the American dream and the myth of the model minority.” — The New York Times (full review here)

Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen was as good as everyone’s been saying! It was refreshing to not have a love story be a central element of the book. If you like behind-the-scenes looks the smart and fashionable like the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy by Kevin Kwan; books where you might find yourself rooting for a criminal like The Good Thief’s Guide series by Chris Ewan; or sly, twisty stories of female friendship like The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris, you’ll like Counterfeit. (And take it from me, you won’t have to know anything about designer handbags!)

Like Belgravia, Counterfeit is an AudioFile Earphones Award winner. Catherine Ho also read Joan Is Okay by Weike Wang, which I liked a lot last year.

Belgravia by Julian Fellowes

“What a joy it is to hand the reins to the superb Juliet Stevenson and say, ‘Take my carriage to Belgravia in 1841.’ The story is filled with the clattering of horses’ hooves, the swish of ladies’ fans and gowns, the shuffle of calling cards, and ‘the young queen,’ Victoria, on the throne.” — AudioFile (full review here)

Belgravia by Julian Fellowes could have gone on my TBR Challenge List, I’ve been meaning to listen to it for so long. It was intended to be my audiobook to listen to on our return trip home from England, an engaging story for the train and plane rides back. (I had even hoped to visit the London district of Belgravia to see what it was like, but we didn’t have time for much London sightseeing in the end.) As it turned out, I only managed to compile last week’s blog post in the wee hours of the morning, before the cold symptoms took over and my brain was as foggy as London, and my double-masked head felt stuffed with cotton wool.

Our train car and flight to Boston were both full of boisterous young people having a lovely time – all high spirits and healthy immune systems.

Notes to self for next time: Select seats in the “quiet car” on the train, and, for the love of God, don’t forget to pack earplugs.

Please let me know what you’re reading and/or listening to in the comments! (You might have to click on the post title to see the comments block.)

In case you missed it, I shared a few pics from London in my last post. I had hoped to do another one about our travels during the week, but wasn’t up to it.

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!