Are you reading a book by or about Margaret Atwood currently?

While we aren't a terribly active discussion group, I thought I'd add a thread for those of us who might be currently readings a novel, poetry collection or nonfiction by Margaret Atwood, or a book about or somehow related to her.

I currently am reading The Penelopiad and enjoying it very much. Atwood's wit is in the forefront in this little book. While I know why I picked it up now, I don't know why I hadn't picked it up before this!

I just finished reading Moral Disorder and enjoyed it very much. It has been described as quite autobiographical, and I was very curious to know whether various stories described stages in Atwood's own life and people in her family. Her trademark satirical humour appears from time to time, and is delightful. I love her sensitivity to characters' emotions, and her strong portrayal of women who struggle in different ways with the day to day challenges of relationships and trying to find happiness.

Interesting about Moral Disorder being autobiographical- I didn't think that it was. However that means that I will look for a book that I was meaning to read by Rosemary Sullivan - The Red Shoes: Margaret Atwood Starting Out

Sounds fascinating; let us know how it is...please?

Will give a report when I find the book and read it!I am now reading Rosemary Sullivan's latest book on the rescue of artists during World War Two. I seem to remember good reviews on her Margaret Atwood book.

I'm glad I decided to visit the group page. I'm currently reading Oryx and Crake, and I'm loving it so far. I was engaged from the moment I started! I'm constantly amazed how easily I get into Atwood's books.

This is actually my take-out book (to read when I am out, waiting or at a café), but I'm so tempted to read straight through it at home!

Oh, just one thing I'm not happy about with Oryx and Crake is the stereotype of a Filipina domestic worker and the misspelling of Philippina.

I've started picking my way through the collection of interviews pictured currently on the group page. Waltzing Again: New and Selected Conversations with Margaret Atwood. Thus far, I have enjoyed several interviews done by Joyce Carol Oates in the 70's. I would recommend it for Atwoodaholics and those interested in her thoughts on writing fiction and poetry. Actually, she has interesting things to say on a variety of topics!
What a brilliant woman, really.

I am embarrassed to say, that I am 3/4 way through my very first Atwood book - The Handmaid's Tale, which I am enjoying in a kind of horrified way.

I now vow that I must read all her other books, although the order of reading is not clear. I thought the next choice could be Alias Grace and then Penelopiad.

not currently reading atwood, but always tempted to pick up and re-read Handmaid's Tale when deciding what to read next.

>9 kiwidoc: -- Alias Grace was a little tougher for me, for some reason. Robber Bride might be a good choice -- that one grabbed me even more than Cat's Eye. i stayed up til 7am finishing it. :)

My favourite Atwood book is my first Atwood book, The Edible Woman. It's so witty, loudly funny and always relevant.

I recently added "Power Politics" to my Atwood collection and I'm reading it off and on, and inbetween everything else.

I have a copy of The Penelopiad, but am a little anxious about starting it without having read The Odyssey. Could someone that has read both let me know if they think that it enhances the reading of Atwood's book? I have read The Iliad, but The Odyssey has yet to be even purchased.

You really only have to know the basic story of The Odyssey, imo. You could probably pick up a synopsis somewhere on line.

Thanks, I already know the basic story of The Odyssey, and wasn't particularly looking forward to reading it, haha. I am however looking forward to reading Atwood's novel.

I have finished reading Power Politics and have started The Door, Atwood's newest collection of poetry kindly sent to me by a fellow LTer. I think I will leave it beside the bed and read it on occasion rather than gooble it down all at once as I did Power Politics.

I am also reading The handmaids tale and am also horrifying fascinated with it.

I'm currently reading The Robber Bride, and I'm really enjoying it, more than I did my last Atwood reads.

I'm not currently reading an Atwood, although I plan to start Alias Grace as soon as I recover from Middlemarch. I did however check out an Atwood DVD from the library today. In 2006 Bill Moyers had a series on PBS called "Faith and Reason" where he interviewed famous authors on their ideas of, yes, you guessed it: faith and reason. Atwood's interview was one of the only ones I saw, and I thought she was brilliant. I talked the university library into purchasing the whole series (it was outrageously expensive), and now I'm working my way through them. First up is a rewatching of the Atwood interview. If you can find this DVD, I highly recommend it.

Sounds great, Nickelini, I'll check my library consortium! Also, the book Waltzing Again has new & selected 'conversations' with Atwood over the whole period of her career. A fabulous read; a brilliant, perceptive woman! (equally intriguing are The Journals of Joyce Carol Oates. . .

I just finished The Robber Bride, and it's definitely one of my favorites now!

I just started Surfacing, shame for me it didn't get picked for the group read.

I had a look at other Convesations re it and it has come up on the worst book/ clunkers/ most bungled ending threads ...

I've just got started with Oryx and Crake and it is definitely intriguing me. I've probably read half a dozen or so other Atwood's before now, but I think this is the first with a male protagonist - quite a change!

Wonderlake: Surfacing in on the list of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, so not everyone thinks it's horrible. Come back and let us know what you think.

I loved Surfacing myself. I read it years ago and because I have a terrible memory, I can't remember much of it, except that it left a big impression on me. It's one of my favorite Atwood novels.

Just setting off on holiday accompanied by Alias Grace.

I was happy to find today a paperback copy of Oryx and Crake so I don't have to wear out my hardcover for our summer read. I may take the book with me on the plane to OZ (right about the time the discussion may be starting...).

Surfacing was so incredibly strange and mysterious. I could have easily when I finished reading it just gone back to the start and begun it again. There was so much of it I didn't pick up on at first glance- her baby, her brother...

I was also jealous of her outward bounds skills - knowing about plants, vegetables, mushrooms, canoeing, fishing- it made me want to explore the Great Outdoors myself, except I'd be one of the rubbish townies that got lost and had to have an expensive search & rescue team sent after me.

>29 frahealee: The Robber Bride is one of my favorites (but then I have so many favorites) I have enjoyed her poetry, too.

Just finished The Testaments, think I will start a thread here in the group and see if anyone wants to talk about it.

>31 frahealee: I have Dearly: New Poems but have not had the quiet time to really dig into it. So many books, so little time...as they say.

Just this week I started re-reading Margaret Atwood Conversations, a 1990 book edited by her fellow Canadian, Earl G. Ingersoll. The editor uses a timeline approach to Atwood, whose oeuvre is immense and still growing:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/oeuvre

Atwood is candid, specific, and illuminating in this set of interviews. It's my favorite in all the critical published reviews of her work.

Of Atwood's novels, the most accessible I have read so far are her Madd Addam trilogy, speculative fiction novels on a pandemic illness that threatens the species of Homo sapiens sapiens on Earth. As I stated elsewhere on this LT website, after re-reading those 3 novels, I found only one writing mistake -- a character is included in the second novel among the survivors but is not present in the third and final novel. Frankly, in a trilogy of this scope and complexity, finding only a single mistake by the author leaves me wanting to remove my hat in respect and call out, "Bravo."

I found The Handmaid's Tale more readable after its sequel The Testaments was published. In her comments in the afterword of the hardcover edition of The Testaments, Atwood admits she used new protagonists in this sequel because she found it hard to recapture the voice of the main character from The Handmaid's Tale, a novel first published in 1986.

>33 MaureenRoy: Thank you! It has been a long time since I read anything by Margaret Atwood. I enjoyed all the ones I have read. I have not read the Madd Addam trilogy. Perhaps I should try them.

>33 MaureenRoy:, >34 krazy4katz: Nice to see a bit of talk here. And to hear there are readers still reading Atwood...I'm interested how her work is perceived now, in the current era.

>35 avaland: That is an interesting questions. My opinions haven't changed. Perhaps because I am not of the "current era". On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if many people think the same way now. For the latest and greatest, see the thread in Pro and Con regarding childbirth, contraception etc. We still need Margaret Atwood.

>36 krazy4katz: Hear, hear! Yes, we still need Margaret Atwood.

I'll be reading Alias Grace this month - looking forward to it.