Margaret Atwood - Author
Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa and grew up in northern Ontario and Quebec, and Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master's degree from Radcliffe College.
She is the author of more than twenty-five volumes of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction and is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman, The Handmaid's Tale, The Robber Bride and Alias Grace. Her novel, The Blind Assassin, won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2000.
Margaret Atwood currently lives in Toronto with novelist Graeme Gibson.
Author photo © George Whiteside
WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION FROM MARGARET ATWOOD. The Republic of Gilead offers Offred only one function: to breed. If she deviates, she will, like dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire - neither Offred's nor that of the two men on which her future hangs. Brilliantly conceived and executed, this powerful vision of the future gives full rein to Margaret Atwood's irony, wit and astute perception.
Stan and Charmaine are a married couple trying to stay afloat in the midst of economic and social collapse. Living in their car, surviving on tips from Charmaine's job at a dive bar, they're increasingly vulnerable to roving gangs, and in a rather desperate state. So when they see an advertisement for the Positron Project in the town of Consilience - a 'social experiment' offering stable jobs and a home of their own - they sign up immediately. All they have to do in return for this suburban paradise is give up their freedom every second month, swapping their home for a prison cell. At first, all is well. But slowly, unknown to the other, Stan and Charmaine develop a passionate obsession with their counterparts, the couple that occupy their home when they are in prison. Soon the pressures of conformity, mistrust, guilt and sexual desire take over, and Positron looks less like a prayer answered and more like a chilling prophecy fulfilled.
A recently widowed fantasy writer is guided through a stormy winter evening by the voice of her late husband. An elderly lady with Charles Bonnet syndrome comes to terms with the little people she keeps seeing, while a newly formed populist group gathers to burn down her retirement residence. A woman born with a genetic abnormality is mistaken for a vampire, and a crime committed long ago is revenged in the Arctic via a 1.9 billion-year-old stromatalite.
Toby, a survivor of the man-made plague that has swept the earth, is telling stories. Stories left over from the old world, and stories that will determine a new one. Listening hard is young Blackbeard, one of the innocent Crakers, the species designed to replace humanity. Their reluctant prophet, Jimmy-the-Snowman, is in a coma, so they've chosen a new hero - Zeb, the street-smart man Toby loves. As clever Pigoons attack their fragile garden and malevolent Painballers scheme, the small band of survivors will need more than stories.
IN OTHER WORLDS: SF AND THE HUMAN IMAGINATION is Margaret Atwood's account of her relationship with the literary form we have come to know as 'science fiction'. This relationship has been lifelong, stretching from her days as a child reader in the 1940s, through her time as a graduate student at Harvard, where she worked on the Victorian ancestors of the form, and continuing as a writer and reviewer. This book brings together her three Ellman Lectures on 2010 - 'Flying Rabbits', which begins with Atwood's early rabbit superhero creations, and goes on to speculate about masks, capes, weakling alter egos, and Things with Wings; 'Burning Bushes', which follows her into Victorian otherlands and beyond; and 'Dire Cartographies', which investigates Ustopias -Utopia/Dystopia - including her own ventures into those constructions. IN OTHER WORLDS also reprints some of Atwood's key reviews and speculations about the form, or forms - for she also elucidates the differences - as she sees them - between 'science fiction' proper, and 'speculative fiction', not to mention 'sword and sorcery/fantasy' and 'slipstream fiction'.
One of Belle de Jour's favourite books. September 2010 Guest Editor Belle de Jour on Margaret Atwood... Atwood’s books hugely influenced my reading style (though probably not my writing style!). I love the way she weaves research so seamlessly into her stories. In the hands of a lesser writer, some of her books might be mere dystopian sci-fi, but she makes the characters as real as documentary. The Handmaid’s Tale, in particular, influenced a lot how I think about politics, religion, and feminism.
This is essentially a follow up to Oryx and Crake tells the story of that world created there from a totally different perspective. It may help in some ways to have read the previous novel but it does read as a stand alone and is a fantastic and imaginative read from one of the best writers around.
A new collection of dazzling short fiction from Booker winning author Margaret Atwood. These super-short little 'fictional essays' are as fantastically well-written as you would expect from a literary giant such as Atwood. Each one is like a poem in prose, challenging yet extremely rewarding. The essays are interspersed with illustrations drawn by Atwood herself.
A 2011 World Book Night selection. Atwood's Booker prize-winning novel reissued with a striking new jacket along with other titles from Margaret Atwood's backlist. Lyrical, outrageous, formidable, compelling and funny, this is a novel filled with deep humour and dark drama. Our Editorial Guru, Sarah Broadhurst, has suggested others book and authors that would be perfect for you to read next or to pass on the recommendation - so your gift will keep on giving enjoyment. Her selection for this title is: Aldous Huxley.
July 2013 Guest Editor Cath Staincliffe on The Handmaid's Tale... A story about a terrifying dystopian world, ruled by a military and religious dictatorship which is homophobic, racist and misogynistic. Where infertility is rife, the handmaid’s role is to bear children for the ruling class. This chilling book imagines what a backlash to feminism might lead to and though it is horrifying there is also humanity, wit and humour in the writing. One of Hardeep Singh Kohli's favourite books. September 2010 Guest Editor Belle de Jour on Margaret Atwood... Atwood’s books hugely influenced my reading style (though probably not my writing style!). I love the way she weaves research so seamlessly into her stories. In the hands of a lesser writer, some of her books might be mere dystopian sci-fi, but she makes the characters as real as documentary. The Handmaid’s Tale, in particular, influenced a lot how I think about politics, religion, and feminism.
Although set in the mid 1960’s this is still a relevant book about marriage and relationships and explores the characters in a depth. July 2010 Guest Editor Louise Candlish on Margaret Atwood... I read Atwood’s first novel some time after the later biggies like Alias Grace and was not surprised to find she was masterly right out of the blocks. Though the heroine Marian’s journey is an anguished one, there are also flashes of wonderful absurdist humour. If this were published today it would probably be called ‘chick noir’.
A BBC radio full-cast dramatisation of Margaret Atwood's chilling dystopian novel.
The Republic of Gilead offers Offred only one function: to breed. If she deviates, she will, like dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire - neither Offred's nor that of the two men on which her future hangs. Brilliantly conceived and executed, this powerful evocation of twenty-first century America gives full rein to Margaret Atwood's devastating irony, wit and astute perception.
Can we ever be wholly free? In this book of breathtaking imaginary leaps that conjure dystopias and magical islands, Margaret Atwood holds a mirror up to our own world. The reflection we are faced with, of men and women in prisons literal and metaphorical, is frightening, but it is also a call to arms to speak and to act to preserve our freedom while we still can. And in that, there is hope. Selected from The Handmaid's Tale and Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood. VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. A series of short books by the world's greatest writers on the experiences that make us human
Penelope. Immortalised in legend and myth as the devoted wife of the glorious Odysseus, silently weaving and unpicking and weaving again as she waits for her husband's return. Now Penelope wanders the underworld, spinning a different kind of thread: her own side of the story - a tale of lust, greed and murder.
A stunning new hardback edition of Margaret Atwood's classic work of true crime - 'an explosive mixture of murder, sex and class conflict' (Daily Mail) soon to be a major Netflix series Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize Shortlisted for the Orange Prize Sixteen years have passed since teenaged Grace was locked up for the cold-blooded murder of her employer Thomas Kinnear and his lover, Nancy Montgomery. Saved from the gallows where her alleged accomplice was hanged, Grace claims to have no memory of the events which changed her life for ever. Dr Simon Jordan is an expert in the field of amnesia. His objective is to unlock the dormant part of Grace's mind and discover the truth behind one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of all time. Was Grace an unwitting accessory, or a cold-blooded killer?
A stunning bespoke gift package featuring an iconic design from the prize-winning artist, Noma Bar, eye-catching sprayed edges and ribbon. The perfect present for those who like their beauty with a bit of bite. The Republic of Gilead offers Offred only one function: to breed. If she deviates, she will, like dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire - neither Offred's nor that of the two men on which her future hangs. Brilliantly conceived and executed, this powerful evocation of twenty-first century America gives full rein to Margaret Atwood's devastating irony, wit and astute perception.
By the author of The Handmaid's Tale Now a major NETFLIX series Sometimes I whisper it over to myself: Murderess. Murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt along the floor.' Grace Marks. Female fiend? Femme fatale? Or weak and unwilling victim? Around the true story of one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of the 1840s, Margaret Atwood has created an extraordinarily potent tale of sexuality, cruelty and mystery. 'Brilliant... Atwood's prose is searching. So intimate it seems to be written on the skin' Hilary Mantel 'The outstanding novelist of our age' Sunday Times 'A sensuous, perplexing book, at once sinister and dignified, grubby and gorgeous, panoramic yet specific...I don't think I have ever been so thrilled' Julie Myerson, Independent on Sunday
LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2017 Selected as a Book of the Year - Observer, Sunday Times, Times, Guardian, New Statesman, i magazine Felix is at the top of his game as Artistic Director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival. His productions have amazed and confounded. Now he's staging a Tempest like no other. It will boost his reputation. It will heal emotional wounds. Or that was the plan. Instead, after an act of unforeseen treachery, Felix is living in exile in a backwoods hovel, haunted by memories of his beloved lost daughter, Miranda. Also brewing revenge. After twelve years, revenge finally arrives in the shape of a theatre course at a nearby prison. Here, Felix and his inmate actors will put on his Tempest and snare the traitors who destroyed him. It's magic! But will it remake Felix as his enemies fall?
WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION FROM MARGARET ATWOOD. The Republic of Gilead offers Offred only one function: to breed. If she deviates, she will, like dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire - neither Offred's nor that of the two men on which her future hangs. Brilliantly conceived and executed, this powerful vision of the future gives full rein to Margaret Atwood's irony, wit and astute perception.
William Shakespeare's The Tempest retold as Hag-SeedFelix is at the top of his game as Artistic Director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival. His productions have amazed and confounded. Now he's staging a Tempest like no other: not only will it boost his reputation, it will heal emotional wounds.Or that was the plan. Instead, after an act of unforeseen treachery, Felix is living in exile in a backwoods hovel, haunted by memories of his beloved lost daughter, Miranda. And also brewing revenge.After twelve years, revenge finally arrives in the shape of a theatre course at a nearby prison. Here, Felix and his inmate actors will put on his Tempest and snare the traitors who destroyed him. It's magic! But will it remake Felix as his enemies fall?Margaret Atwood's novel take on Shakespeare's play of enchantment, retribution, andsecond chances leads us on an interactive, illusion-ridden journey filled with new surprises and wonders of its own.
'It's got a thunderstorm in it. And revenge. Definitely revenge.' Felix is at the top of his game as Artistic Director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival. His productions have amazed and confounded. Now he's staging a Tempest like no other: not only will it boost his reputation, it will heal emotional wounds. Or that was the plan. Instead, after an act of unforeseen treachery, Felix is living in exile in a backwoods hovel, haunted by memories of his beloved lost daughter, Miranda. And also brewing revenge. After twelve years, revenge finally arrives in the shape of a theatre course at a nearby prison. Here, Felix and his inmate actors will put on his Tempest and snare the traitors who destroyed him. It's magic! But will it remake Felix as his enemies fall? Margaret Atwood's novel take on Shakespeare's play of enchantment, revenge and second chances leads us on an interactive, illusion-ridden journey filled with new surprises and wonders of its own.
** Longlisted for the Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction ** Selected as a Book of the Year -- Observer, Sunday Times, Times, Guardian, i magazine `It's got a thunderstorm in it. And revenge. Definitely revenge.' Felix is at the top of his game as Artistic Director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival. His productions have amazed and confounded. Now he's staging a Tempest like no other: not only will it boost his reputation, it will heal emotional wounds. Or that was the plan. Instead, after an act of unforeseen treachery, Felix is living in exile in a backwoods hovel, haunted by memories of his beloved lost daughter, Miranda. And also brewing revenge. After twelve years, revenge finally arrives in the shape of a theatre course at a nearby prison. Here, Felix and his inmate actors will put on his Tempest and snare the traitors who destroyed him. It's magic! But will it remake Felix as his enemies fall? Margaret Atwood's novel take on Shakespeare's play of enchantment, revenge and second chances leads us on an interactive, illusion-ridden journey filled with new surprises and wonders of its own.
NOW A SMASH-HIT CHANNEL 4 TV SERIES 'It isn't running away they're afraid of. We wouldn't get far. It's those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge' Offred is a Handmaid. She has only one function: to breed. If she refuses to play her part she will, like all dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. She may walk daily to the market and utter demure words to other Handmaid's, but her role is fixed, her freedom a forgotten concept. Offred remembers her old life - love, family, a job, access to the news. It has all been taken away. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire. Includes exclusive content: In The 'Backstory' you can read Margaret Atwood's account of how she came to write this landmark dystopian novel 'Compulsively readable' Daily Telegraph
By the author of The Handmaid's Tale and Alias Grace Stan and Charmaine are a married couple trying to stay afloat in the midst of economic and social collapse. Living in their car, surviving on tips from Charmaine's job at a dive bar, they're increasingly vulnerable to roving gangs and in a rather desperate state. So when they see an advertisement for the Positron Project in the town of Consilience - a 'social experiment' offering stable jobs and a home of their own - they sign up immediately. All they have to do in return for this suburban paradise is give up their freedom every second month, swapping their home for a prison cell. At first, all is well. But slowly, unknown to the other, Stan and Charmaine develop a passionate obsession with their counterparts, the couple that occupy their home when they are in prison. Soon the pressures of conformity, mistrust, guilt and sexual desire take over, and Positron looks less like a prayer answered and more like a chilling prophecy fulfilled.
A Vintage Shorts ';Short Story Month' SelectionThe author of such towering novels as The Handmaid's Tale, The Blind Assassin, and Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood proves her imaginative prowess dazzles just as vividly in her short fiction. ';Stone Mattress,' from her collection of the same name is witty, grotesque, and utterly hilariousan exemplar of Atwood's tremendous capacity for capturing our darkest impulses on the page.Verna, aging widow, boards a cruise ship bound for the Arctic in search of her next husband. The last four had suffered regrettable tragedies and left Verna wickedly wealthy in their wake. But, instead of finding another wealthy suitor, Verna finds unwitting Bob, the first man to have ever wronged her. Single, reasonably near his grave, ordinary, and attracted to her like all the othersBob is all-too-easy prey for Verna's merciless revenge.An ebook short.
Four of Margaret Atwood's best novels, in one volume!In The Handmaid's Tale, amulti-award-winning, bestselling novel, Margaret Atwood has created a stunning Orwellian vision of the near future. This is the story of Offred, one of the unfortunate ';Handmaids' under the new social order who have only one purpose: to breed. In Gilead, where women are prohibited from holding jobs, reading, and forming friendships, Offred's persistent memories of life in the ';time before' and her will to survive are acts of rebellion. Provocative, startling, prophetic, and with Margaret Atwood's devastating irony, wit, and acute perceptive powers in full force,The Handmaid's Taleis at once a mordant satire and a dire warning.The Blind Assassin:';Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge.' These words are spoken by Iris Chase Griffen, married at eighteen to a wealthy industrialist but now poor and eighty-two. Iris recalls her far from exemplary life, and the events leading up to her sister's death, gradually revealing the carefully guarded Chase family secrets. Among these is ';The Blind Assassin,' a novel that earned the dead Laura Chase not only notoriety but also a devoted cult following. Sexually explicit for its time, it was a pulp fantasy improvised by two unnamed lovers who meet secretly in rented rooms and seedy cafes. As this novel-within-a-novel twists and turns through love and jealousy, self-sacrifice and betrayal, so does the real narrative, as both move closer to war and catastrophe. Margaret Atwood's Booker Prize-winning sensation combines elements of gothic drama, romantic suspense, and science fiction fantasy in a spellbinding tale.InAlias Grace, Atwood takes us back in time and into the life of one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of the nineteenth century. Grace Marks has been convicted for her involvement in the vicious murders of her employer, Thomas Kinnear, and Nancy Montgomery, his housekeeper and mistress. Some believe Grace is innocent; others think her evil or insane. Now serving a life sentence, Grace claims to have no memory of the murders. Dr. Simon Jordan, an up-and-coming expert in the burgeoning field of mental illness, is engaged by a group of reformers and spiritualists who seek a pardon for Grace. He listens to her story while bringing her closer and closer to the day she cannot remember. What will he find in attempting to unlock her memories? Is Grace a female fiend? A bloodthirsty femme fatale? Or is she the victim of circumstances?And finally, The Robber Bride,inspired by "e;The Robber Bridegroom,"e; a wonderfully grisly tale from the Brothers Grimm in which an evil groom lures three maidens into his lair and devours them, one by one. But in her version, Atwood brilliantly recasts the monster as Zenia, a villainess of demonic proportions, and sets her loose in the lives of three friends, Tony, Charis, and Roz. All three "e;have lost men, spirit, money, and time to their old college acquaintance, Zenia. At various times, and in various emotional disguises, Zenia has insinuated her way into their lives and practically demolished them. To Tony, who almost lost her husband and jeopardized her academic career, Zenia is 'a lurking enemycommando.' To Roz, who did lose her husband and almost her magazine, Zenia is 'a cold and treacherous bitch.' To Charis, who lost a boyfriend, quarts of vegetable juice and some pet chickens, Zenia is a kind of zombie, maybe 'soulless'"e; (Lorrie Moore,New York Times BookReview). In love and war, illusion and deceit, Zenia's subterranean malevolence takes us deep into her enemies' pasts.
A recently widowed fantasy writer is guided through a stormy winter evening by the voice of her late husband. An elderly lady with Charles Bonnet syndrome comes to terms with the little people she keeps seeing, while a newly formed populist group gathers to burn down her retirement residence. A woman born with a genetic abnormality is mistaken for a vampire, and a crime committed long ago is revenged in the Arctic via a 1.9 billion-year-old stromatolite. In these nine tales, Margaret Atwood ventures into the shadowland earlier explored by fabulists and concoctors of dark yarns such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Daphne du Maurier and Arthur Conan Doyle - and also by herself, in her award-winning novel Alias Grace. In Stone Mattress, Margaret Atwood is at the top of her darkly humorous and seriously playful game.
Stan and Charmaine are a married couple trying to stay afloat in the midst of economic and social collapse. Living in their car, surviving on tips from Charmaine's job at a dive bar, they're increasingly vulnerable to roving gangs, and in a rather desperate state. So when they see an advertisement for the Positron Project in the town of Consilience - a 'social experiment' offering stable jobs and a home of their own - they sign up immediately. All they have to do in return for this suburban paradise is give up their freedom every second month, swapping their home for a prison cell. At first, all is well. But slowly, unknown to the other, Stan and Charmaine develop a passionate obsession with their counterparts, the couple that occupy their home when they are in prison. Soon the pressures of conformity, mistrust, guilt and sexual desire take over, and Positron looks less like a prayer answered and more like a chilling prophecy fulfilled.
In honor of the thirtieth anniversary of The Handmaid's Tale: Margaret Atwood describes how she came to write her utopian, dystopian works. The word ';utopia' comes from Thomas More's book of the same namemeaning ';no place' or ';good place,' or both. In ';Dire Cartographies,' from the essay collection In Other Worlds, Atwood coins the term ';ustopia,' which combines utopia and dystopia, the imagined perfect society and its opposite. Each contains latent versions of the other. Following her intellectual journey and growing familiarity with ustopias fictional and real, from Atlantis to Avatar and Beowulf to Berlin in 1984 (and 1984), Atwood explains how years after abandoning a PhD thesis with chapters on good and bad societies, she produced novel-length dystopias and ustopias of her own. ';My rules for The Handmaid's Tale were simple,' Atwood writes. ';I would not put into this book anything that humankind had not already done, somewhere, sometime, or for which it did not already have the tools.' With great wit and erudition, Atwood reveals the history behind her beloved creations.
What is the role of the writer? Prophet? High Priest of Art? Court Jester? Or witness to the real world? Looking back on her own childhood and the development of her writing career, Margaret Atwood examines the metaphors which writers of fiction and poetry have used to explain - or excuse! - their activities, looking at what costumes they have seen fit to assume, what roles they have chosen to play. In her final chapter she takes up the challenge of the book's title: if a writer is to be seen as 'gifted', who is doing the giving and what are the terms of the gift? Margaret Atwood's wide and eclectic reference to other writers, living and dead, is balanced by anecdotes from her own experiences as a writer, both in Canada and on the international scene. The lightness of her touch is underlined by a seriousness about the purpose and the pleasures of writing, and by a deep familiarity with the myths and traditions of western literature.
In the title story from her acclaimed collection Moral Disorder, Margaret Atwood takes us to the farm.At first, for Nell and Tig, livestock would mean deadstock. Newly-arrived city slickers shouldn't have animals, they think, corroborated by the real farmers down the road. But Tig's kids from his first marriage are at the farm on weekends, and it's not a bad education for children to learn where their food comes from. First come the chickens, then the ducks, and before Nell knows it the cows have arrived too. Soon Nell finds herself becoming a different type of woman than she ever thought she might be.The author of such towering novels as The Handmaid's Tale, The Blind Assassin, and Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood creates worlds just as vividly in her short fiction. The New York Times Book Review notes that "e;the tremendous imaginative power of [Atwood's] fiction allows us to believe that anything is possible"e;this applies as much to the world of the Crakers as it does to the strange life of a family in the countryside. By turns funny, moving, incisive, earthy, shocking, "e;Moral Disorder"e; displays Atwood's celebrated storytelling gifts and unmistakable style to their best advantage.
Ignored by critics and readers of the time, these poems were written by Canadians who witnessed the horror of World War I first-hand, forming an anthology in which the forgotten experiences of a decade are finally remembered.
A recently widowed fantasy writer is guided through a stormy winter evening by the voice of her late husband. An elderly lady with Charles Bonnet syndrome comes to terms with the little people she keeps seeing, while a newly formed populist group gathers to burn down her retirement residence. A woman born with a genetic abnormality is mistaken for a vampire, and a crime committed long ago is revenged in the Arctic via a 1.9 billion-year-old stromatalite.
A trilogy bundle (three ebooks in one)of the internationally celebrated speculative fiction trilogy from the #1 New York Timesbestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale.Across three stunning novelsOryx and Crake,The Year of the Flood, andMaddaddamthe best-selling, Booker Prize-winning novelist projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and beyond our imagining.InOryx and Crake, a man struggles to survive in a world where he may be the last human. In search of answers, he embarks on a journey through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride. InThe Year of the Floodthe long-feared waterless flood has occurred, altering Earth as we know it and obliterating most human life. And inMaddaddama small group of survivors band together with the Children of Crake: the gentle, bioengineered quasi-human species who will inherit this new earth.Set in a darkly plausible future shaped by plagues, floods, and genetic engineering, these three novels take us from the end of the world to a brave new beginning. Thrilling, moving, and a triumph of imagination, the Maddaddam Trilogy confirms the ultimate endurance of humanity, community, and love.
Toby, a survivor of the man-made plague that has swept the earth, is telling stories. Stories left over from the old world, and stories that will determine a new one. Listening hard is young Blackbeard, one of the innocent Crakers, the species designed to replace humanity. Their reluctant prophet, Jimmy-the-Snowman, is in a coma, so they've chosen a new hero - Zeb, the street-smart man Toby loves. As clever Pigoons attack their fragile garden and malevolent Painballers scheme, the small band of survivors will need more than stories.
The author of such towering novels as The Handmaid's Tale, The Blind Assassin, and Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood creates worlds just as vividly in her short fiction. In the title story from her acclaimed collection of linked stories Moral Disorder, Margaret Atwood takes us to the farm.Newly arrived city slickers, like Nell and Tig, shouldn't have animals; a notion corroborated by the true farmers down the road: for them, livestock would mean dead stock. But Tig's two boys will be at the farm on weekends, and it would be good for them to know where their food comes from. First come the chickens, then the ducks; before Nell knows it the cows have arrived, too. And soon Nell finds herself becoming a different woman than she ever thought she might be.The New York Times notes that ';The tremendous imaginative power of [Atwood's] fiction allows us to believe that anything is possible'this applies as much to her fantastically imagined worlds as it does to the life of a family in the countryside.An eBook short.
A New York Times Notable BookA Washington Post Notable BookABest Book of the Year: The Guardian, NPR, The Christian Science Monitor, The Globe and MailA GoodReads Reader's ChoiceBringing together Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood, this thrilling conclusion to Margaret Atwood's speculative fiction trilogy points toward the ultimate endurance of community, and love.Months after the Waterless Flood pandemic has wiped out most of humanity, Toby and Ren have rescued their friend Amanda from the vicious Painballers. They return to the MaddAddamite cob house, newly fortified against man and giant pigoon alike. Accompanying them are the Crakers, the gentle, quasi-human species engineered by the brilliant but deceased Crake. Their reluctant prophet, Snowman-the-Jimmy, is recoveringfrom a debilitating fever, soit's left to Toby to preach the Craker theology, with Crake as Creator. She must also deal with cultural misunderstandings, terrible coffee, and her jealousy over her lover, Zeb. Zeb has been searching for Adam One, founder of the God's Gardeners, the pacifist green religion from which Zeb broke years ago to lead the MaddAddamites in active resistance against the destructive CorpSeCorps. But now, under threat of a Painballer attack, the MaddAddamites must fight back with the aid of their newfound allies, some of whom have four trotters. At the center of MaddAddam is the story of Zeb's dark and twisted past, which contains a lost brother, a hidden murder, a bear, and a bizarre act of revenge. Combining adventure, humor, romance, superb storytelling, and an imagination at once dazzlingly inventive and grounded in a recognizable world, MaddAddam is vintage Margaret Atwooda moving and dramatic conclusion to her internationally celebrated dystopian trilogy.From the Hardcover edition.
A man-made plague has swept the earth, but a small group survives, along with the green-eyed Crakers - a gentle species bio-engineered to replace humans. Toby, onetime member of the God's Gardeners and expert in mushrooms and bees, is still in love with street-smart Zeb, who has an interesting past. The Crakers' reluctant prophet, Snowman-the-Jimmy, is hallucinating; Amanda is in shock from a Painballer assault; and Ivory Bill yearns for the provocative Swift Fox, who is flirting with Zeb. Meanwhile, giant Pigoons and malevolent Painballers threaten to attack. Told with wit, dizzying imagination, and dark humour, Booker Prize-winning Margaret Atwood's unpredictable, chilling and hilarious MaddAddam takes us further into a challenging dystopian world - a moving and dramatic conclusion to the internationally celebrated trilogy that began with Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood.
From Booker Prizewinner and #1 national bestseller Margaret Atwood, The MaddAddam Trilogy is so utterly compelling, so prescient, so relevant, so all-too-likely-to-be-true, that readers may find their view of the world forever changed after reading it.This is Margaret Atwood at the absolute peak of her powers. With breathtaking command of her brilliantly conceived material, and with her customary sharp wit and dark humour, she projects us into an outlandish yet wholly believable realm populated by characters who will continue to inhabit our dreams long after the last chapter. In the tradition of The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood envision a near future that is both beyond our imagining and all too familiar: a world devastated by uncontrolled genetic engineering and a widespread plague, with only a few remaining humans fighting for survival.Combining adventure, humour, romance and superb storytelling that is at once dazzlingly inventive and grounded in a recognizable world, MaddAddam is a moving and dramatic conclusion to this internationally celebrated dystopian trilogy.
By the author of THE HANDMAID'S TALE and ALIAS GRACE * Pigs might not fly but they are strangely altered. So, for that matter, are wolves and racoons. A man, once named Jimmy, lives in a tree, wrapped in old bedsheets, now calls himself Snowman. The voice of Oryx, the woman he loved, teasingly haunts him. And the green-eyed Children of Crake are, for some reason, his responsibility. * Praise for Oryx and Crake: 'In Jimmy, Atwood has created a great character: a tragic-comic artist of the future, part buffoon, part Orpheus. An adman who's a sad man; a jealous lover who's in perpetual mourning; a fantasist who can only remember the past' -INDEPENDENT 'Gripping and remarkably imagined' -LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS
This is essentially a follow up to Oryx and Crake tells the story of that world created there from a totally different perspective. It may help in some ways to have read the previous novel but it does read as a stand alone and is a fantastic and imaginative read from one of the best writers around.
For Penelope, wife of Odysseus, maintaining a kingdom while her husband was off fighting the Trojan war was not a simple business. Already aggrieved that he had been lured away due to the shocking behaviour of her beautiful cousin Helen, Penelope must bring up her wayward son, face down scandalous rumours and keep over a hundred lustful, greedy and bloodthirsty suitors at bay...And then, when Odysseus finally returns and slaughters the murderous suitors, he brutally hangs Penelope's twelve beloved maids. What were his motives? And what was Penelope really up to? Critically acclaimed when it was first published as part of Canongate's Myth series, and following a very successful adaptation by the RSC, this new edition of The Penelopiad sees Margaret Atwood give Penelope a modern and witty voice to tell her side of the story, and set the record straight for good.
IN OTHER WORLDS: SF AND THE HUMAN IMAGINATION is Margaret Atwood's account of her relationship with the literary form we have come to know as 'science fiction'. This relationship has been lifelong, stretching from her days as a child reader in the 1940s, through her time as a graduate student at Harvard, where she worked on the Victorian ancestors of the form, and continuing as a writer and reviewer. This book brings together her three Ellman Lectures on 2010 - 'Flying Rabbits', which begins with Atwood's early rabbit superhero creations, and goes on to speculate about masks, capes, weakling alter egos, and Things with Wings; 'Burning Bushes', which follows her into Victorian otherlands and beyond; and 'Dire Cartographies', which investigates Ustopias -Utopia/Dystopia - including her own ventures into those constructions. IN OTHER WORLDS also reprints some of Atwood's key reviews and speculations about the form, or forms - for she also elucidates the differences - as she sees them - between 'science fiction' proper, and 'speculative fiction', not to mention 'sword and sorcery/fantasy' and 'slipstream fiction'.
Long ago, when they were all a lot younger, Zenia stole a man from each of them. Then she died. Now shes come back. Or has she? Theres a lot more than one kind of ghost. Margaret Atwood revisits her classic characters from The Robber Bride. This story first appeared in the July/August 2012 issue of The Walrus magazine.
From the author of the New York Times bestselling novels The Handmaid's Talenow an Emmy Award-winning Hulu original seriesand Alias Grace, now a Netflix original series.A powerfully and brilliantly crafted novel, Bodily Harm is the story of Rennie Wilford, a young journalist whose life has begun to shatter around the edges. Rennie flies to the Caribbean to recuperate, and on the tiny island of St. Antoine she is confronted by a world where her rules for survival no longer apply. By turns comic, satiric, relentless, and terrifying, Margaret Atwood's Bodily Harm is ultimately an exploration of the lust for power, both sexual and political, and the need for compassion that goes beyond what we ordinarily mean by love.
NOW A SMASH-HIT CHANNEL 4 TV SERIES Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She has only one function: to breed. If she deviates, she will, like dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire - neither Offred's nor that of the two men on which her future hangs. Brilliantly conceived and executed, this powerful evocation of twenty-first century America explores a world in which oppression of women, and repression of the truth, have become justified. 'Compulsively readable' Daily Telegraph
Playful, whimsical and wry, this is a beautiful picture book with a simple message at its heart. It is also classic Margaret Atwood and a wonderful gift for any lover of her words. Written, illustrated and hand-lettered by M.A., Up In the Tree was first published in 1978, and is the story of two children who make their home up in the branches of a tree, where they are free to do whatever they choose. But when the ladder they rely on to get back down again is destroyed, some of their freedom disappears, too, and the children begin to wonder what they might be missing, down amongst the ground dwellers - until they have an ingenious idea, which helps them to decide what they really prefer once and for all!
By the author of THE HANDMAID'S TALE and ALIAS GRACE A beautifully bizarre assortment of short stories and prose poems. Writing on an eclectic range of subjects from 'Bread' and 'Strawberries', to 'Fainting' and 'Women's Novels', Margaret Atwood brings her astonishing world view to the comings and goings of ordinary life. The pretentious male chef is taken down a peg, a gang of cynical five year olds concoct a poisonous brew; and knowing when to stop is of deadly importance in a game of Murder in the Dark. * Praise for Murder in the Dark: These vignettes glow with the usual Atwood magic of intelligence ... an exhilarating performance, full of sharp pleasures for the mind -BRITISH BOOK NEWS 'A brilliant and witty writer' -COSMOPOLITAN 'Direct, unpretentious, humorous' -SUNDAY TIMES
A treasure trove of collected works from the legendary author of The Handmaid's Tale and Alias Grace Queen Gertrude gives Hamlet a piece of her mind. An ugly sister and a wicked stepmother put in a good word for themselves. A reincarnated bat explains how Bram Stoker got Dracula hopelessly wrong. Bones and Murder is a bewitching cocktail of prose and poetry, fiction and fairytales, as well as some of Atwood's own illustrations. It's pure distilled Atwood: deliciously strong and bittersweet. 'A marvellous miniature sample case of Atwood's sensuous and sardonic talents' Times Literary Supplement
I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary. From the author of The Handmaid's Tale and Alias Grace Eating Fire brings together three of Margaret's Atwood's key poetry collections: Poems 1965-1975, Poems 1976-1986 and Morning in the Burned House. The landscape of Atwood's poetry is one of bus trips and postcards, wilderness, glass, and fires both savage and tender. Atwood's signature themes resound throughout all of them: the politics of sex, the darkness at the heart of every fairytale, and the pain - and triumph - of existing as a woman. * * * 'Atwood is the quiet Mata Hari, the mysterious, violent figure . . . who pits herself against the ordered too-clean world like an arsonist' - Michael Ondaatje 'Detached, ironic, loving by turns . . . poems that sing off the page and sting' - Michele Roberts
By the author of The Handmaid's Tale and Alias Grace A leathery bog-man transforms an old love affair; a sweet, gruesome gift is sent by the wife of an ex-lover; landscape paintings are haunted by the ghost of a young girl. This dazzling collection of ten short stories takes us into familiar Atwood territory to reveal the logic of irrational behaviour and the many textures lying beneath ordinary life.
The story of Zenia ought to begin when Zenia began. It must have been someplace long ago and distance in space, thinks Tony; someplace bruised, and very tangled. A European print, hand-tinted, ochre-coloured, with dusty sunlight and a lot of bushes in it - bushes with thick leaves and ancient twisted roots, behind which, out of sight in the undergrowth and hinted at only by a boot protruding, or a slack hand, something ordinary but horrifying is taking place. Zenia is beautiful, smart and greedy, by turns manipulative and vulnerable, needy and ruthless. She is also dead. Just to make absolutely sure Tony, Roz and Charis are there for the funeral. But five years on, as the three women share a decorous lunch, the unthinkable happens: 'with waves of ill will flowing out of her like cosmic radiation', Zenia is back
A young woman returns to northern Quebec to the remote island of her childhood, with her lover and two friends, to investigate the mysterious disappearance of her father. Flooded with memories, she begins to realise that going home means entering not only another place but another time. As the wild island exerts its elemental hold and she is submerged in the language of the wilderness, she sees that what she is really looking for is her own past.
From the Sunday Times bestselling novel, The Year of the Flood, composer Orville Stoeber has set fourteen hymns to music. Orville Stoeber on how the music came to be: 'Margaret Atwood's inspired reading of the perilous times we live in, and of the fragile nature of our earth, have directed me. I have used as my signposts the various styles of deity-based songs that I have come in contact with through my cultural inheritance, my musical education and my love of spiritually motivated art.I wrote these songs for the reasons the Gardeners themselves would have written them: for the purpose of praise, adoration, and prayer to our planet, in thanks for its animals and plants and the primate seeds that led to our human experience.'
By the author of The Handmaid's Tale and Alias Grace THE DOOR is Margaret Atwood's first book of poetry since the 1995 MORNING IN THE BURNED HOUSE. Its lucid yet urgent poems range in tone from lyric to ironic to meditative to prophetic, and in subject from the personal to the political viewed in its broadest sense. They investigate the mysterious writing of poetry itself, as well as the passage of time and our shared sense of mortality. As the New York Times has said, 'Atwood's poems are short, glistening with terse, bright images. . . ' A brave and compassionate book, THE DOOR interrogates the certainties that we build our lives on.
In this wide-ranging history of debt Margaret Atwood investigates its many meanings through the ages, from ancient times to the current global financial meltdown. Many of us wonder: how could we have let such a collapse happen? How old or inevitable is this human pattern of debt? Imaginative, topical and insightful, Payback urges us to reconsider our ideas of ownership and debt - before it is too late.
From one of the world's most passionately engaged and acclaimed literary citizens comes Writing with Intent, the largest collection to date of Margaret Atwood's nonfiction, ranging from 1983 to 2005. Composed of autobiographical essays, cultural commentary, book reviews, and introductory pieces to great works of literature, this is the award-winning author's first book-length nonfiction publication in twenty years. Arranged chronologically, these writings display the development of Atwood's worldview as the world around her changes. Included are the Booker Prizewinning author's reviews of books by John Updike, Italo Calvino, Toni Morrison, and others, as well as essays in which she remembers herself reading Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse at age nineteen, and discusses the influence of George Orwell's 1984 on the writing of The Handmaid's Tale. Atwood's New York Times Book Review piece that helped make Orhan Pamuk's Snow a bestseller can be found here, as well as a look back on a family trip to Afghanistan just before the Soviet invasion, and her "e;Letter to America,"e; written after September 11, 2001. The insightful and memorable pieces in this book serve as a testament to Atwood's career, reminding readers why she is one of the most esteemed writers of our time.
By the author of The Handmaid's Tale and Alias Grace This collection of short stories follows a woman at different points in her life, from the loneliness of childhood, the ardour and confusion of young adulthood, and the mortality we must all eventually face up to. Moral Disorder is Margaret Atwood at her very finest. Praise for Moral Disorder: 'Atwood entices us to flip through the photo album of a Canadian woman who closely resembles herself. Come here, sit beside me, she seems to say. Then she takes us on an emotional journey through loneliness, love, loss and old age' Sarah Emily Miano, The Times 'Atwood makes it look so easy, doing what she does best: tenderly dissecting the human heart . . . A marvellous writer' Lee Langley, Daily Mail 'A model of distillation, precision, clarity and detail . . . Atwood writes with compassion and intensity not only about her characters but also about the 20th century itself' Mary Flanagan, Independent
From the #1New York Timesbestselling author ofThe Handmaid's TaleOryx and Crake is at once an unforgettable love story and a compelling vision of the future. Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journeywith the help of the green-eyed Children of Crakethrough the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride. Margaret Atwood projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and beyond our imagining.
As portrayed in Homer's Odyssey, Penelope - wife of Odysseus and cousin of the beautiful Helen of Troy - has become a symbol of wifely duty and devotion, enduring twenty years of waiting when her husband goes to fight in the Trojan War. As she fends off the attentions of a hundred greedy suitors, travelling minstrels regale her with news of Odysseus' epic adventures around the Mediterranean - slaying monsters and grappling with amorous goddesses. When Odysseus finally comes home, he kills her suitors and then, in an act that served as little more than a footnote in Homer's original story, inexplicably hangs Penelope's twelve maids. Now, Penelope and her chorus of wronged maids tell their side of the story in a new stage version by Margaret Atwood, adapted from her own wry, witty and wise novel. The Penelopiad premiered with the Royal Shakespeare Company in association with Canada's National Arts Centre at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, in July 2007.
One of the world's most celebrated authors, Margaret Atwood has written a collection of smart and entertaining fictional essays, in the genre of her previous books, Good Bones and Murder in the Dark . Chilling and witty, prescient and personal, delectable and tart, these highly imaginative tales tackle a broad range of subjects, reflecting the times we live in with deadly accuracy and knife-edge precision. Punctuated with wonderful illustrations by the author, they are vintage Atwood.
The Republic of Gilead offers Offred only one function: to breed . If she deviates, she will, like dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire - neither Offred's nor that of the two men on which her future hangs...
Margaret Atwood has frequently been cited as one of the foremost writers of our time. Moral Disorder, her new work of fiction, could be seen as a collection of eleven stories that is almost a novel or a novel broken up into eleven stories. It resembles a photograph album - a series of clearly observed moments that trace the course of a life, and the lives intertwined with it - those of parents, siblings, children, friends, enemies, teachers and even animals. And as in a photograph album, times change; every decade is here, from the 1930s through the 50s, 60s and 70s to the present day. The settings are equally varied: large cities, suburbs, farms, northern forests. The first story, 'The Bad News,' is set in the present, as a couple no longer young situate themselves in a larger world no longer safe. Then the narrative switches time, as the central character moves through childhood and adolescence, in 'The Art of Cooking and Serving', 'The Headless Horseman' and 'My Last Duchess'. We follow her into young adulthood in 'The Other Place', and then through a complex relationship, traced in four of the stories - 'Monopoly', 'Moral Disorder', 'White Horse' and 'The Entities'. The last two stories, 'The Labrador Fiasco' and 'The Boys at the Lab', deal with the heartbreaking old age of parents, but circle back to childhood again, to complete the cycle. By turns funny, moving, lyrical, incisive, tragic, earthy, shocking and deeply personal, Moral Disorder displays Atwood's celebrated storytelling gifts and inimitable style to their best advantage. As the New York Times has said, 'Atwood has complete access to her people's emotional histories, complete understanding of their hearts and imaginations.'
By the author of The Handmaid's Tale and Alias Grace Curious Pursuits is a collection of personal essays, book reviews and articles from the fierce, ingenious mind of Margaret Atwood, ranging from 1970 to the present. Atwood remembers moving to London as a starry-eyed teenager in 1964 and her first attempts at gardening; she discusses feminist utopias in fiction, and writes moving odes on beloved classics like Anne of Green Gables. Personal life and fiction are shelved side by side in this revealing, insightful collection of Atwood's non-fiction writing. PRAISE FOR Curious Pursuits 'A goldmine' Sunday Times 'Reminds one that Atwood is a superbly funny (as well as serious) writer; her wit is winningly relaxed and genial as well as sharp' Spectator 'The glimpses into the writing process and her reflections on identity will delight fans of her novels, who will also recognise flashes of her mordant wit' Times
Available for the first time as a downloadable audio file.'Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge.' Thus begins The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood's new novel. Laura Chase's older sister Iris, married at eighteen to a politically prominent industrialist but now poor and eighty-two, is living in Port Ticonderoga, a town dominated by their once-prosperous family before the First War. While bewailing her unreliable body and deriding those who try to help her, Iris reflects on her far from exemplary life and her perilous times, but in particular on the events surrounding her sister's tragic early death. Chief among these was the publication of The Blind Assassin, a novel which earned the dead Laura Chase a dollop of notoriety as well as a cult following: as Iris says, she herself lives 'in the long shadow cast by Laura'. Sexually explicit for its time and place, The Blind Assassin describes a risky affair in the turbulent thirties between a wealthy young woman and a left-leaning man on the run.
Sixteen years after being locked up, at the age of sixteen, for the bloody murders of her employer and his housekeeper, Grace Marks is examined by Dr Simon Jordan, an expert in amnesia.As the days and weeks pass Simon tries to prise open the memories Grace claims to have lost and reveals a life of love and betrayal, poverty and abuse, drawing the listener in to the rooms of Grace's mind.
In this fantastic and funny picture book Margaret Atwood offers a deliciously ridiculous tale about the virtues of resisting restrictions. Rude Ramsay has reached the end of his rope! Sick of eating rock-hard rice, wrinkled ravioli, and raw rhinoceros, Ramsay and Ralph the red-nosed rat resolve to leave their rectangular residence in a quest for more refreshing repast and to prove that the grass really is greener on the other side of the fence. With lots of 'r's' to help the story roll along, Margaret Atwood's rollicking text, combined with Dusan Petricic's lively art, make this book a real treat for Margaret Atwood fans, old and new.
Margaret Atwood's witty and informative book focuses on the imaginative mystique of the wilderness of the Canadian North. She discusses the 'Grey Owl Syndrome' of white writers going native; the folklore arising from the mysterious-- and disastrous -- Franklin expedition of the nineteenth century; the myth of the dreaded snow monster, the Wendigo; the relations between nature writing and new forms of Gothic; and how a fresh generation of women writers in Canada have adapted the imagery of the Canadian North for the exploration of contemporary themes of gender, the family and sexuality. Writers discussed include Robert Service, Robertson Davies, Alice Munro, E.J. Pratt, Marian Engel, Margaret Laurence, and Gwendolyn MacEwan.This superbly written and compelling portrait of the mysterious North is at once a fascinating insight into the Canadian imagination, and an exciting new work from an outstanding literary presence.
A 2011 World Book Night selection. Atwood's Booker prize-winning novel reissued with a striking new jacket along with other titles from Margaret Atwood's backlist. Lyrical, outrageous, formidable, compelling and funny, this is a novel filled with deep humour and dark drama. Our Editorial Guru, Sarah Broadhurst, has suggested others book and authors that would be perfect for you to read next or to pass on the recommendation - so your gift will keep on giving enjoyment. Her selection for this title is: Aldous Huxley.
This poetry collection was first written in 1970. In 1980, Atwood's long-time friend, the artist Charles Pachter, illustrated, designed and published a limited, hand-made, boxed portfolio edition of 120 copies of the poem with silkscreen illustrations. This is a facsimile edition of it.
By the author of The Handmaid's Tale Now a major NETFLIX series Sometimes I whisper it over to myself: Murderess. Murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt along the floor.' Grace Marks. Female fiend? Femme fatale? Or weak and unwilling victim? Around the true story of one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of the 1840s, Margaret Atwood has created an extraordinarily potent tale of sexuality, cruelty and mystery. 'Brilliant... Atwood's prose is searching. So intimate it seems to be written on the skin' Hilary Mantel 'The outstanding novelist of our age' Sunday Times 'A sensuous, perplexing book, at once sinister and dignified, grubby and gorgeous, panoramic yet specific...I don't think I have ever been so thrilled' Julie Myerson, Independent on Sunday
A man finds himself surrounded by women who are becoming paler, more silent and literally smaller; a woman's intimate life is strangely dominated by the fear of nuclear warfare; a melancholy teenage love is swept away by a hurricane, while a tired, middle-aged affection is rekindled by the spectacle of rare Jamaican birds...In these exceptional short stories, by turns funny and searingly honest, Margaret Atwood captures brilliantly the complex forces that govern our relationships, and the powerful emotions that guide them.
Students and journalists, farmers and birdwatchers, ex-wives, adolescent lovers - and dancing girls. All ordinary people - or are they? In this splendid collection of short stories, Margaret Atwood maps the human motivation we scarcely know we have in a startlingly original voice, full of rare intensity and exceptional intelligence. With brilliant flashes of fantasy, humour and unexpected violence, these stories reveal the complexities of human relationships and bring to life characters who evoke laughter, compassion, terror and recognition and dramatically demonstrate why Atwood is one of the most important writers in English today.
July 2013 Guest Editor Cath Staincliffe on The Handmaid's Tale... A story about a terrifying dystopian world, ruled by a military and religious dictatorship which is homophobic, racist and misogynistic. Where infertility is rife, the handmaid’s role is to bear children for the ruling class. This chilling book imagines what a backlash to feminism might lead to and though it is horrifying there is also humanity, wit and humour in the writing. One of Hardeep Singh Kohli's favourite books. September 2010 Guest Editor Belle de Jour on Margaret Atwood... Atwood’s books hugely influenced my reading style (though probably not my writing style!). I love the way she weaves research so seamlessly into her stories. In the hands of a lesser writer, some of her books might be mere dystopian sci-fi, but she makes the characters as real as documentary. The Handmaid’s Tale, in particular, influenced a lot how I think about politics, religion, and feminism.
Life Before Man explores the lives of three people imprisoned by walls of their own construction and in thrall to the tragicomedy we call love. Elizabeth, with her controlled sensuality and suppressed rage, has just lost her latest lover to suicide. Nate, her gentle, indecisive husband, is planning to leave her for Lesje, a perennial innocent who prefers dinosaurs to men. Hanging over them all is the ghost of Elizabeth's dead lover, and the dizzying threat of three lives careening inevitably towards the same climax.
Rennie Wilford, a young jounalist running from her life, takes an assignment to a Caribbean island and tumbles into a world where no one is what they seem. When the burnt-out Yankee Paul (does he smuggle dope or hustle for the CIA?) offers her a no-hooks, no strings affair, she is caught up in a lethal web of corruption.
A treasure trove of collected works from the legendary author of The Handmaid's Tale and Alias Grace Queen Gertrude gives Hamlet a piece of her mind. An ugly sister and a wicked stepmother put in a good word for themselves. A reincarnated bat explains how Bram Stoker got Dracula hopelessly wrong. Bones and Murder is a bewitching cocktail of prose and poetry, fiction and fairytales, as well as some of Atwood's own illustrations. It's pure distilled Atwood: deliciously strong and bittersweet. 'A marvellous miniature sample case of Atwood's sensuous and sardonic talents' Times Literary Supplement
This is a collection of short stories from the author of Cat's Eye and The Handmaid's Tale . The settings range from late-1950s coffee bars, where poetry readings are subversive, to wild Canadian landscapes that are both menacing and alluring.
By the author of The Handmaid's Tale and Alias Grace Zenia is beautiful, smart and greedy, by turns manipulative and vulnerable, needy and ruthless; a man's dream and a woman''s nightmare. She is also dead. Just to make sure Tony, Roz andd Charis are there for the funeral. But five years on, as the three women share an indulgent, sisterly lunch, the unthinkable happens; 'with waves of ill will flowing out of her like cosmic radiation', Zenia is back...
One of the New Windmills series for schools, this is the story of Offred, one of the few women in the Republic of Gilead left with functioning ovaries, whose only function it is to breed. If she deviates, she will be hanged as a dissenter. But Offred is determined to find a way out.
This is a collection of short stories from the author of Cat's Eye and The Handmaid's Tale . The settings range from late-1950s coffee bars where poetry readings are subversive, to wild Canadian landscapes that are both menacing and alluring.
By the author of The Handmaid's Tale and Alias Grace Elaine Risley, a painter, returns to Toronto to find herself overwhelmed by her past. Memories of childhood - unbearable betrayals and cruelties - surface relentlessly, forcing her to confront the spectre of Cordelia, once her best friend and tormentor, who has haunted her for forty years. 'Not since Graham Greene has a novelist captured so forcefully the relationship between school bully and victim...Atwood's games are played, exquisitely, by little girls' LISTENER An exceptional novel from the winner of the 2000 Booker Prize
An impressive selection of some of the best work of Canadian poets and Atwood's brilliant introductory survey of Canadian poetry make this an excellent textbook choice.
By the author of The Handmaid's Tale and Alias Grace * The trick was to disappear without a trace, leaving behind me the shadow of a corpse, a shadow everyone would mistake for solid reality. At first I thought I'd managed it. Fat girl, thin girl. Red hair, brown hair. Polish aristocrat, radical husband. Joan Foster has dozens of different identities, and she's utterly confused by them all. After a life spent running away from difficult situations, she decides to escape to a hill town in Italy to take stock of her life. But first she must carefully arrange her own death. * 'A mistress of controlled hysteria' - Time 'If you feel safe only with nine to five reality, you'll probably not enjoy her books. But if you'd like to lift off, try her' - Cosmopolitan
Although set in the mid 1960’s this is still a relevant book about marriage and relationships and explores the characters in a depth. July 2010 Guest Editor Louise Candlish on Margaret Atwood... I read Atwood’s first novel some time after the later biggies like Alias Grace and was not surprised to find she was masterly right out of the blocks. Though the heroine Marian’s journey is an anguished one, there are also flashes of wonderful absurdist humour. If this were published today it would probably be called ‘chick noir’.
By the author of The Handmaid's Tale and Alias Grace 'One of the most important novels of the 20th century . . . utterly remarkable' New York Times A young woman returns to northern Quebec to the remote island of her childhood, with her lover and two friends, to investigate the mysterious disappearance of her father. Flooded with memories, she begins to realise that going home means entering not only another place but another time. As the wild island exerts its elemental hold and she is submerged in the language of the wilderness, she sees that what she is really looking for is her own past.
