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!! Everyone welcome !!
One Monday a month we get together in the English Studies library at Vienna University to discuss some contemporary text. After 8 pm the discussion may continue in one of the local pubs...
You can now find us on facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/viennalitclub/
Next meeting:
The next meeting will probably take place online again - please watch this space for further announcements.
Monday 16 May:
7.00pm - 8.30pm
The Motion of the Body Through Space
by Lionel Shriver
“Lionel Shriver’s
scabrously funny 15th novel presents a dyspeptic view of people in thrall to
exercise. In 2013 Shriver’s own daily regime involved “130 press-ups, 200 side
crunches, 500 sit-ups and 3,000 star jumps … The jumps take 32½ minutes, or
three every two seconds”. The Motion Of The Body Through Space was
written, she recently revealed, after she realised that she may be more
dedicated to her exercise than to her writing.
The protagonist,
Serenata Terpsichore (“rhymes with chicory”), is a 60-year-old woman from
upstate New York with a beguiling voice and ruined knees. The former she puts
to lucrative use as a voiceover artist and narrator of audiobooks. The latter
are the result of a lifetime’s adherence to the doctrine of working out; in
particular the belief that 10-mile runs are the key to longevity and good
health. As it tuns out, all
those years of pounding the sidewalk mean that Serenata’s old age is
accompanied by searing joint pain and the need for a knee-replacement
operation. To make matters worse, her husband Remington has caught the fitness
bug.
...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.”
Alfred Hickling, The Guardian
Preview 20 June:
Autumn
by Ali Smith
Autumn
by Ali Smith
If you love reading and want to meet like-minded people
informally to discuss a contemporary text, just come along. (It would be great
if you
could drop me a line so we know roughly how many people to expect:
julia.novak@univie.ac.at)
Julia Lajta-Novak
(Vienna Lit Book Group Coordinator)
(Vienna Lit Book Group Coordinator)
Venue:
Fachbereichsbibliothek für
Anglistik und Amerikanistik
Universitätscampus Altes AKH
Spitalgasse 2, Hof 8
A-1090 Wien
http://bibliothek.univie.ac.at/fb-anglistik/
karin.lach@univie.ac.at
How to get there: trams 43,44, 5, 33
To access courtyard 8 use any
one of the main entrances to the campus:
Garnisongasse (walk through courtyard 9)
Thavonatgasse, Alserstrasse
(walk through courtyards 1 and 7)
Spitalgasse (walk through
courtyards 1 or 2 and 7).
books previously discussed:
Min Jin Lee: Pachinko: A Novel
C. Pam Zhang: How Much of These Hills Is Gold
Damon Galgut: The Promise
Natasha Brown: Assembly
Sally Rooney: Beautiful World, Where Are You
Emily Danforth: Plain Bad Heroines
Nicole Krauss: To Be A Man
Imbolo Mbue: How Beautiful We Were
Salena Godden: Mrs Death Misses Death
Patricia Lockwood: No One Is Talking About This
Rebecca Makkai: The Great Believers
Jessica Anthony: Enter the Aardvark
Douglas Stuart: Shuggie Bain
Patrick Ness: And the Ocean Was Our Sky
Maggie O'Farrell: Hamnet
Neil Mukherjee: A State of Freedom
Tayari Jones: An American Marriage
Madeline Miller: Circe
Anna Wiener: Uncanny Valley
Margaret Atwood: Oryx and Crake
Sarah Moss: Ghost Wall
Bernadine Evaristo: Girl, Woman, Other
Nicola Barker: H(a)ppy
Ocean Vuong: On Earth, We're Briefly Gorgeous
Kim Stanley Robinson: New York 2140
Russell Hoban: Riddley Walker
William Siegfried: Virtual Enchantment
Kei Miller: Augustown
Daisy Johnson: Everything Under
Craig Thompson: Blankets: A Graphic Novel
Elif Batuman: The Idiot
DBC Pierre: Vernon God Little
Anna Burns: Milkman
Fiona Melrose: Midwinter
Rachel Kushner: The Mars Room
Helen Macdonald: H is for Hawk
Andrew Greer: Less
Philip Pullman: La Belle Sauvage
Gillian Tindall: The House by the Thames
Lidia Yuknavitch: The Book of Joan
Emily Ruskovich: Idaho
George Saunders: Lincoln in the Bardo
Nicole Krauss: Forrest Dark
Sebastian Barry: Days Without End
Lidia Yuknavitch: The Power
Joanne Harris: Gentlemen and Players
Julian Barnes: The Noise of Time
Colson Whitehead: The Underground Railroad
Donna Tartt: The Goldfinch
Margaret Atwood: Hag-Seed
Karen Jay Fowler: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
Adam Biles: Feeding Time
Rabih Alameddine: An Unnecessary Woman
Tsitsi Dangarembga: Nervous Conditions
Ali Smith: How To Be Both
Paul Beatty: The Sellout
Paula Hawkins: The Girl on the Train
Graeme Macrae Burnet: His Bloody Project
Kazuo Ishiguro: The Buried Giant
Rachel Joyce: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
Adam Johnson: Parasites Like Us
Nicole Krauss: The History of Love
Anne Tyler: A Spool of Blue Thread
Bernadine Evaristo: Blonde Roots
Naomi J. Williams: Landfalls
Sunjeev Sahota: The Year of the Runaways
Miranda July: The First Bad Man
Claire Fuller: Our Endless Numbered Days
Anthony Doerr: All the Light We Cannot See
Emma Healey: Elizabeth Is Missing
Ian McEwan: The Children Act
Junot Díaz: The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Americanah: A Novel
Joshua Ferris: To Rise Again at a Decent Hour
Neil Gaiman: The Ocean at the End of the Lane
M. R. Carey: The Girl with All the Gifts
Bret Anthony Johnston: Remember Me Like This
Susanna Clarke: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Andrew O'Hagan: The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of his Friend Marilyn Monroe
Ruth Ozeki: A Tale for the Time Being
Salman Rushdie: The Enchantress of Florence
Patrick Ness: The Crane Wife
Lauren Groff: Arcadia
Eleanor Catton: The Rehearsal
Stevie Davies: Awakening
Carol Anshaw: Carry The One
Daniel Woodrell: The Maid's Version
A.M. Homes: May We Be Forgiven
Toni Morrison: Home
Gillian Flynn: Gone Girl
Aravind Adiga: The White Tiger
Elizabeth Strout: Olive Kitteridge
Ben Fountain: Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
China Miéville: The City and the City
Patrick deWitt: The Sisters Brothers
Michel Faber: The Crimson Petal and the White
Amy Waldman: The Submission
Miriam Toews: Irma Voth
David Nicholls: One Day
Colum McCann: Let the Great World Spin
Michael Chabon: The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Andrew Miller: Pure
Jennifer Egan: A Visit from the Goon Squad
Emma Tennant: The Ballad of Sylvia and Ted
Stephen Kelman: Pigeon English
Ann Patchett: Bel Canto
Jane Gardam: Old Filth
Austin Wright: Tony & Susan
Dara Horn: The World To Come
Siri Hustvedt: The Summer Without Men
Åsne Seierstad: The Bookseller of Kabul
Kathryn Stockett: The Help
Daniel Woodrell: Winter's Bone
Kei Miller: The Last Warner Woman
Sebastian Faulks: Birdsong
Ian McEwan: Solar
Tash Aw: Map of the Invisible World
Marilynne Robinson: Gilead
Caryl Phillips: Cambridge
Fay Weldon: The Stepmother's Diary
Nicholas Baker: A Box of Matches
Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler's Wife
Alan Bennett: The Uncommon Reader
Philip Pullman: His Dark Materials
Michel Faber: Under The Skin
John Burnside: The Devil's Footprints
David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas
Lloyd Jones: Mr Pip
Douglas Coupland: The Gum Thief
Graham Swift: The Light of Day
Gail Jones: Sorry
Iain Banks: The Crow Road
Anne Enright: Taking Pictures
J. M. Coetzee: Disgrace
Jackie Kay: The Adoption Papers
Paul Auster: New York Trilogy
Martin Amis: House of Meetings
Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie: Half of a Yellow Sun
J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Mordecai Richler: Barney's Version
David Lodge: Author, Author
Julian Barnes: Arthur & George
Vienna Lit (eds): Vienna Views
Marina Lewycka: A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
Carol Ann Duffy: The World's Wife
Zadie Smith: On Beauty
John Updike: Terrorist
Ali Smith: The Accidental
Mitch Albom: Tuesdays with Morrie
Mitch Albom: The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Nick Hornby: A Long Way Down
Lionel Shriver: We Need To Talk About Kevin
Kate Fox: Watching the English
Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go
Jonathan Safran Foer: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Purple Hibiscus
Ian McEwan: Saturday
Jasper Fforde: The Eyre Affair
Andrea Levy: Small Island
C. Pam Zhang: How Much of These Hills Is Gold
Damon Galgut: The Promise
Natasha Brown: Assembly
Sally Rooney: Beautiful World, Where Are You
Emily Danforth: Plain Bad Heroines
Nicole Krauss: To Be A Man
Imbolo Mbue: How Beautiful We Were
Salena Godden: Mrs Death Misses Death
Patricia Lockwood: No One Is Talking About This
Rebecca Makkai: The Great Believers
Jessica Anthony: Enter the Aardvark
Douglas Stuart: Shuggie Bain
Patrick Ness: And the Ocean Was Our Sky
Maggie O'Farrell: Hamnet
Neil Mukherjee: A State of Freedom
Tayari Jones: An American Marriage
Madeline Miller: Circe
Anna Wiener: Uncanny Valley
Margaret Atwood: Oryx and Crake
Sarah Moss: Ghost Wall
Bernadine Evaristo: Girl, Woman, Other
Nicola Barker: H(a)ppy
Ocean Vuong: On Earth, We're Briefly Gorgeous
Kim Stanley Robinson: New York 2140
Russell Hoban: Riddley Walker
William Siegfried: Virtual Enchantment
Kei Miller: Augustown
Daisy Johnson: Everything Under
Craig Thompson: Blankets: A Graphic Novel
Elif Batuman: The Idiot
DBC Pierre: Vernon God Little
Anna Burns: Milkman
Fiona Melrose: Midwinter
Rachel Kushner: The Mars Room
Helen Macdonald: H is for Hawk
Andrew Greer: Less
Philip Pullman: La Belle Sauvage
Gillian Tindall: The House by the Thames
Lidia Yuknavitch: The Book of Joan
Emily Ruskovich: Idaho
George Saunders: Lincoln in the Bardo
Nicole Krauss: Forrest Dark
Sebastian Barry: Days Without End
Lidia Yuknavitch: The Power
Joanne Harris: Gentlemen and Players
Julian Barnes: The Noise of Time
Colson Whitehead: The Underground Railroad
Donna Tartt: The Goldfinch
Margaret Atwood: Hag-Seed
Karen Jay Fowler: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
Adam Biles: Feeding Time
Rabih Alameddine: An Unnecessary Woman
Tsitsi Dangarembga: Nervous Conditions
Ali Smith: How To Be Both
Paul Beatty: The Sellout
Paula Hawkins: The Girl on the Train
Graeme Macrae Burnet: His Bloody Project
Kazuo Ishiguro: The Buried Giant
Rachel Joyce: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
Adam Johnson: Parasites Like Us
Nicole Krauss: The History of Love
Anne Tyler: A Spool of Blue Thread
Bernadine Evaristo: Blonde Roots
Naomi J. Williams: Landfalls
Sunjeev Sahota: The Year of the Runaways
Miranda July: The First Bad Man
Claire Fuller: Our Endless Numbered Days
Anthony Doerr: All the Light We Cannot See
Emma Healey: Elizabeth Is Missing
Ian McEwan: The Children Act
Junot Díaz: The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Americanah: A Novel
Joshua Ferris: To Rise Again at a Decent Hour
Neil Gaiman: The Ocean at the End of the Lane
M. R. Carey: The Girl with All the Gifts
Bret Anthony Johnston: Remember Me Like This
Susanna Clarke: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Andrew O'Hagan: The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of his Friend Marilyn Monroe
Ruth Ozeki: A Tale for the Time Being
Salman Rushdie: The Enchantress of Florence
Patrick Ness: The Crane Wife
Lauren Groff: Arcadia
Eleanor Catton: The Rehearsal
Stevie Davies: Awakening
Carol Anshaw: Carry The One
Daniel Woodrell: The Maid's Version
A.M. Homes: May We Be Forgiven
Toni Morrison: Home
Gillian Flynn: Gone Girl
Aravind Adiga: The White Tiger
Elizabeth Strout: Olive Kitteridge
Ben Fountain: Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
China Miéville: The City and the City
Patrick deWitt: The Sisters Brothers
Michel Faber: The Crimson Petal and the White
Amy Waldman: The Submission
Miriam Toews: Irma Voth
David Nicholls: One Day
Colum McCann: Let the Great World Spin
Michael Chabon: The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Andrew Miller: Pure
Jennifer Egan: A Visit from the Goon Squad
Emma Tennant: The Ballad of Sylvia and Ted
Stephen Kelman: Pigeon English
Ann Patchett: Bel Canto
Jane Gardam: Old Filth
Austin Wright: Tony & Susan
Dara Horn: The World To Come
Siri Hustvedt: The Summer Without Men
Åsne Seierstad: The Bookseller of Kabul
Kathryn Stockett: The Help
Daniel Woodrell: Winter's Bone
Kei Miller: The Last Warner Woman
Sebastian Faulks: Birdsong
Ian McEwan: Solar
Tash Aw: Map of the Invisible World
Marilynne Robinson: Gilead
Caryl Phillips: Cambridge
Fay Weldon: The Stepmother's Diary
Nicholas Baker: A Box of Matches
Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler's Wife
Alan Bennett: The Uncommon Reader
Philip Pullman: His Dark Materials
Michel Faber: Under The Skin
John Burnside: The Devil's Footprints
David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas
Lloyd Jones: Mr Pip
Douglas Coupland: The Gum Thief
Graham Swift: The Light of Day
Gail Jones: Sorry
Iain Banks: The Crow Road
Anne Enright: Taking Pictures
J. M. Coetzee: Disgrace
Jackie Kay: The Adoption Papers
Paul Auster: New York Trilogy
Martin Amis: House of Meetings
Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie: Half of a Yellow Sun
J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Mordecai Richler: Barney's Version
David Lodge: Author, Author
Julian Barnes: Arthur & George
Vienna Lit (eds): Vienna Views
Marina Lewycka: A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
Carol Ann Duffy: The World's Wife
Zadie Smith: On Beauty
John Updike: Terrorist
Ali Smith: The Accidental
Mitch Albom: Tuesdays with Morrie
Mitch Albom: The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Nick Hornby: A Long Way Down
Lionel Shriver: We Need To Talk About Kevin
Kate Fox: Watching the English
Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go
Jonathan Safran Foer: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Purple Hibiscus
Ian McEwan: Saturday
Jasper Fforde: The Eyre Affair
Andrea Levy: Small Island
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English literature events and opportunities in Vienna
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter announcing
English literature events and opportunities in Vienna