One of the pleasures of traveling is reading books that enrich my experience of a place and audiobooks that accompany me as I walk the streets. I like a mix of biography, history, and fiction. Thus in Russia it was Speak, Memory (Nabokov), The Brothers Karamazov, (Dostoyevsky), Dead Souls (Gogol) and biographies of Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and the doomed Romanovs.
In London I am spoiled for choice, but I know Jane Austen is fine idea, especially Persuasion. I’ve been listening to the audiobook Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley. Apparently the British Library is in possession of Miss Austen’s writing desk. It’s on my must-see list now.
Dickens is marvelous when read aloud and I have Little Dorrit narrated by the incomparable Juliet Stevenson, along with Dickens-themed audiowalks. I’ll fire up P.G. Wodehouse’s oeuvre whenever I find myself in need of screwball comedy.
But where oh where can I find traces of the brilliant author, Terry Pratchett? I know Ankh-Morpork isn’t London precisely, but still. I suppose I will have to buy a dubious sausage-inna-bun from a street vendor and imagine it’s C.M.O.T. Dibbler.
Leave a Reply