Ask a Bookseller: An inventive novel maps our spectacular bodies

This week’s bookseller recommendation comes from Aubrey Roemmich of Ferguson Books & More in Grand Forks, N.D. The book she couldn’t put down was the novel, “Maps of our Spectacular Bodies” by Maddie Mortimer. It’s the story of Lia, a mother facing breast cancer, and the way it inhabits her body and affects the lives of her husband and daughter. Among the recognitions Mortimer’s novel has garnered so far this year, it was longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize.Part of the appeal for Roemmich came from the writing style, which alternates between prose and poetry, voiced in part by the cancer itself.“So it’s really interesting jumping between the two, because the prose and the verse, they complement each other very, very well, but it’s different styles of writing,” she says. “It’s truly marvelous.”