Search results for ""author margaret atwood""

Margaret Atwood is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her novels include Cat's Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin and the MaddAddam trilogy. Her 1985 classic, The Handmaid's Tale, was followed in 2019 by a sequel, The Testaments, which was a global number one bestseller and shared the Booker Prize. In 2020 she published Dearly, her first collection of poetry for a decade; in 2022 Burning Questions, a selection of essays, was a Sunday Times bestseller; and in 2023, Old Babes in the Wood, a volume of short stories, was a number one Sunday Times bestseller. Atwood is a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour, and has won numerous awards including the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award and the Dayton Lit

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By the author of The Handmaid's Tale, The Testaments and Alias Grace'One of the most important novels of the 20th century . . . utterly remarkable' New York Times'I feel it will be different if I look myself. Probably when we get there my father will have returned from wherever he has been, he will be sitting in the cabin waiting for us.'A young woman returns to northern Quebec, to the remote island of her childhood, with her lover and her 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.'A stunning and satisfying book' Time Out'Utterly absorbing' Sunday Times'Atwood has undertaken a serious and complex task. . . . She shows the depths that must be explored if one attempts to live an examined life' New York Times Book Review'Margaret Atwood is one of the most intelligent and talented writers to set herself the task of deciphering life in the late twentieth century' Vogue

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By the author of The Handmaid's Tale and Alias GraceToby, 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.

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These wise and witty writings home in on Shakespeare, tree stumps, ecological disasters, bodies (male and female), and theology, amongst other matters. We hear Gertrude's version of what really happened in Hamlet; an ugly sister and a wicked stepmother put in a good word for themselves,and a reincarnated bat explains how Bram Stoker got Dracula hopelessly wrong. Good Bones is pure distilled Atwood - deliciously strong and bittersweet. 'A marvellous miniature sample case of Atwood's sensuous and sardonic talents' TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

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By the author of The Handmaid's Tale and DearlyTHE 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.'One of the best books by one of the best poets writing in English' TLS

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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

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** THE SUNDAY TIMES NO. 1 BESTSELLER ****A BBC BETWEEN COVERS BIG JUBILEE READ**Go back to where it all began with the dystopian novel behind the award-winning TV series.'As relevant today as it was when Atwood wrote it' GuardianI believe in the resistance as I believe there can be no light without shadow; or rather, no shadow unless there is also light.Offred is a Handmaid in The Republic of Gilead, a religious totalitarian state in what was formerly known as the United States. She is placed in the household of The Commander, Fred Waterford - her assigned name, Offred, means 'of Fred'. She has only one function: to breed. If Offred refuses to enter into sexual servitude to repopulate a devastated world, she will be hanged. Yet even a repressive state cannot eradicate hope and desire. As she recalls her pre-revolution life in flashbacks, Offred must navigate through the terrifying landscape of torture and persecution in the present day, and between two men upon which her future hangs.Masterfully conceived and executed, this haunting vision of the future places Margaret Atwood at the forefront of dystopian fiction.'A fantastic, chilling story. And so powerfully feminist', Bernardine Evaristo, author of Girl, Woman, Other.

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**THE NUMBER 1 BESTSELLER AND WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE**In this electrifying sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood answers the question that has tantalised readers for decades: What happened to Offred?The Republic of Gilead is beginning to rot from within. At this crucial moment, two girls with radically different experiences of the regime come face to face with the legendary, ruthless Aunt Lydia. But how far will each go for what she believes?Now with additional material: book club discussion points and an interview with Margaret Atwood about the real-life events that inspired The Testaments and The Handmaid's Tale.'The Testaments is Atwood at her best . . . To read this book is to feel the world turning' Anne Enright_________________________________PRAISE FOR THE TESTAMENTS:'Everything The Handmaid's Tale fans wanted and more. Prepare to hold your breath throughout, and to cry real tears at the end' Stylist'She manages to write about the darkest and most terrifying parts of human psychology in a way that is still deeply funny and full of dark strange hope' Naomi Alderman, author of The Power

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Winner of the Man Booker PrizeBy the author of The Handmaid's Tale and Alias GraceLaura 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 coping with her unreliable body, Iris reflects on her far from exemplary life, in particular the events surrounding her sister's tragic death. Chief among these was the publication of The Blind Assassin, a novel which earned the dead Laura Chase not only notoriety but also a devoted cult following. Sexually explicit for its time, The Blind Assassin describes a risky affair in the turbulent thirties between a wealthy young woman and a man on the run. During their secret meetings in rented rooms, the lovers concoct a pulp fantasy set on Planet Zycron. As the invented story twists through love and sacrifice and betrayal, so does the real one; while events in both move closer to war and catastrophe. By turns lyrical, outrageous, formidable, compelling and funny, this is a novel filled with deep humour and dark drama.

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"The outburst of cultural energy that took place in the 1960s was in part a product of the two decades that came before. It's always difficult for young people to see their own time in perspective: when you're in your teens, a decade earlier feels like ancient history and the present moment seems normal: what exists now is surely what has always existed." Margaret Atwood compares the Canadian literary landscape of the 1960s to the Burgess Shale, a geological formation that contains the fossils of many strange prehistoric life forms. The Burgess Shale is not entirely about writing itself, however: Atwood also provides some insight into the meagre writing infrastructure of that time, taking a lighthearted look at the early days of the institutions we take for granted today-from writers' organizations, prizes, and grant programs to book tours and festivals.

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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.

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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.

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BY THE AUTHOR OF THE HANDMAID'S TALE, THE TESTAMENTS AND ALIAS GRACE'Dark and witty tales from the gleefully inventive Margaret Atwood. Witty verve, imaginative inventiveness and verbal sizzle vivify every page' Sunday TimesA 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.'A collection of nine acerbic, mischievous, gulpable short stories' Harper's Bazaar'Atwood's prose is so sharp and sly that the effect is bracing rather than bleak' Guardian'[Look at these tales] as eight icily refreshing arsenic Popsicles followed by a baked Alaska laced with anthrax, all served with impeccable style and aplomb. Enjoy!' Ursula K. Le Guin, Financial Times 'Atwood has characters here close to death, dead already, unwittingly doomed or - in one memorable case - freeze-dried; but her own curiosity, enthusiasm and sheer storytelling panache remain alive and kicking' Independent

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By the author of THE HANDMAID'S TALE and ALIAS GRACEA 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

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Discover this sharp, funny short story collection from the bestselling author of The Handmaid’s Tale and The TestamentsA 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.‘An acute and poetic observer of the eternal, universal, rum relationships between men and women’ The Times

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** THE SUNDAY TIMES NO. 1 BESTSELLER **Discover the dystopian novel behind the award-winning TV series in this beautiful gift edition.'I believe in the resistance as I believe there can be no light without shadow; or rather, no shadow unless there is also light.'Offred is a Handmaid in The Republic of Gilead, a religious totalitarian state in what was formerly known as the United States. She is placed in the household of The Commander, Fred Waterford - her assigned name, Offred, means 'of Fred'. She has only one function: to breed. If Offred refuses to enter into sexual servitude to repopulate a devastated world, she will be hanged. Yet even a repressive state cannot eradicate hope and desire. As she recalls her pre-revolution life in flashbacks, Offred must navigate through the terrifying landscape of torture and persecution in the present day, and between two men upon which her future hangs.Masterfully conceived and executed, this haunting vision of the future places Margaret Atwood at the forefront of dystopian fiction.'As relevant today as it was when Atwood wrote it...no television event has hit such a nerve ...' Guardian READ THE TESTAMENTS, THE BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING SEQUEL TO THE HANDMAID'S TALE, TODAY

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'A source of uncompromising elemental warmth' Ali SmithBy turns moving, playful and wise, the poems gathered in Dearly are about absences and endings, ageing and retrospection, but also about gifts and renewals. They explore bodies and minds in flux, as well as the everyday objects and rituals that embed us in the present. Werewolves, sirens and dreams make their appearance, as do various forms of animal life and fragments of our damaged environment.Dearly is a pure Atwood delight, and long-term readers and new fans alike will treasure its insight, empathy and humour.BOOK OF THE YEAR OBSERVER, FINANCIAL TIMES

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By the author of The Handmaid's Tale and The TestamentsCharmaine sees an advertisement for a project called Positron that promises you a job, a place to live, a bed to sleep in - imagine how appealing that would be if you were working in a dive bar and living in your car. She and her husband, Stan, apply at once.The only catch is that once you're in there, you can't get out.No one writes the lust and the loves, the wickedness and the weakness of the human heart like the splendid Margaret Atwood.'Margaret Atwood [is] a living legend' New York Times Book Review'Gloriously madcap . . . You only pause in your laughter when you realise that, in its constituent parts, the world she depicts here is all too horribly plausible' Stephanie Merritt, Observer'Her eye for the most unpredictable caprices of the human heart and her narrative fearlessness have made her one of the world's most celebrated novelists' Naomi Alderman, Guardian'The bestselling author who shot to fame thirty years ago with The Handmaid's Tale is still at her darkly comic best' Sunday Times

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"Blaise is probably the greatest living Canadian writer most Canadians have never heard of."—Quill & Quire“If you want to understand something about what life was like in the restless, peripatetic, striving, anxiety-ridden, shimmer cultural soup of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries," writes Margaret Atwood, "read the stories of Clark Blaise." This Time, That Place draws together twenty-four stories that span the entirety of Blaise's career, including one never previously published. Moving swiftly across place and time, through and between languages—from Florida's Confederate swamps, to working-class Pittsburgh, to Montreal and abroad—they demonstrate Blaise's profound mastery of the short story and reveal the range of his lifelong preoccupation with identity as fallacy, fable, and dream. This Time, That Place: Selected Stories confirms Clark Blaise as one of the best and most enduring masters of the form—on either side of our shared borders.

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The Sea Around Us is one of the most influential books ever written about the natural world. In it Rachel Carson tells the history of our oceans, combining scientific insight and poetic prose as only she can, to take us from the creation of the oceans, through their role in shaping life on Earth, to what the future holds. It was prophetic at the time it was written, alerting the world to a crisis in the climate, and it speaks to the fragility and centrality of the oceans and the life that abounds within them.

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Under the Sea-Wind marks the beginnings of one of the most significant careers in nature writing. In it Rachel Carson celebrates the mystery and beauty of birds and sea creatures in their natural habitat, conjuring the atmosphere of the shore and the open sea and the delicately balanced, fragile struggle for life along the shoreline.

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When it first appeared in 1971, Margaret Atwood’s Power Politics startled readers with its vital dance of woman and man. It still startles today, and is just as iconoclastic as ever. These poems occupy all at once the intimate, the political, and the mythic. Here Atwood makes us realize that we may think our own personal dichotomies are unique, but really they are multiple, universal. Clear, direct, wry, and unrelenting — Atwood’s poetic powers are honed to perfection in this seminal work from her early career.

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In this funny, erudite, endlessly curious, uncannily prescient collection of essays cultural icon Margaret Atwood asks:- Why do people everywhere, in all cultures, tell stories?- How much of yourself can you give away without evaporating?- How can we live on our planet?- Is it true? And is it fair?- What do zombies have to do with authoritarianism?In over fifty pieces Atwood aims her prodigious intellect and impish humour at our world, and reports back to us on what she finds. The roller-coaster period covered in the collection brought an end to the end of history, a financial crash, the rise of Trump and a pandemic. From debt to tech, the climate crisis to freedom; from when to dispense advice to the young (answer: only when asked) to how to define granola, we have no better questioner of the many and varied mysteries of our human universe.''Brilliant and funny'' Joan Didion''She''s taken our times and made us wise t

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Margaret Atwood is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her novels include Cat's Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin and the MaddAddam trilogy. Her 1985 classic, The Handmaid's Tale, was followed in 2019 by a sequel, The Testaments, which was a global number one bestseller and shared the Booker Prize. In 2020 she published Dearly, her first collection of poetry for a decade; in 2022 Burning Questions, a selection of essays, was a Sunday Times bestseller; and in 2023, Old Babes in the Wood, a volume of short stories, was a number one Sunday Times bestseller. Atwood is a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour, and has won numerous awards including the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award and the Dayton Lit

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From fat girl to thin, from red hair to mud brown, from London to Toronto, from Polish count to radical husband, from writer of romances to distinguished poet - Marian is utterly confused by her life of multiple identiities. She decides to escape to an Italain hill town to take stock of her life. But first, she must organise her own death...

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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.

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