Books by Margaret Atwood
The bestselling, multi-award-winning Canadian author Margaret Atwood is best known for her ‘feminist dystopia’ blockbuster The Handmaid’s Tale (its sequel is The Testaments), but is the author of more than 40 other works of fiction, criticism and poetry, including The Blind Assassin (winner of the 2000 Booker Prize); Oryx and Crake (shortlisted for the 2003 Booker); and Alias Grace (winner of Canada’s Giller Prize and Italy’s Premio Mondello).
“I really love the Penelopiad. It’s wonderful at bringing out some of what I already hinted was important in my work of a translator: teasing out the multiple perspectives, multiple voices, in this poem. I also love how it juxtaposes different styles and different voices. It has both ballad-like verse and prose intermixed, which is not what the Odyssey does, but I think it speaks to something which is in the Odyssey, about the mixture of different modes, different ways of seeing things.” Read more...
Emily Wilson, Classicist
This novella by Canadian author Margaret Atwood was published in 2005 as part of a first set of books in Canongate’s ‘Myth’ series. Written from the perspective of Penelope in Homer’s Odyssey, we see the heroine’s tireless efforts to maintain order whilst her husband is away fighting at Troy—bringing up her wayward son Telemachus singlehandedly whilst fighting off hundreds of bloodthirsty suitors who seek to dethrone Odysseus and take Penelope for a wife. Nominated for the 2006 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, we see the dark side of the Odyssey and the suffering of the women at its heart.
From our article Books like The Song of Achilles
“It’s a really strange novel…it’s on my list because I’ve never seen anything like it. The words in the title, they’re animals, but they actually refer to people. One of them, Crake, is a scientist, a genetic engineer; and essentially, he’s a sort of evil villain character. He’s really, really interesting. He engineers a great pandemic, which wipes out most of the world. And he is in a relationship with this very ethereal woman, who we never really get to know very well, who is known as Oryx. It’s a difficult book to summarise, because it’s very hallucinatory and weird! Every aspect of it is brighter than life, somehow. The basic plot follows a man who in the narrative present is called the Snowman, and he lives in a post-apocalyptic world. He’s surrounded by these very innocent humans who seem a lot like the Eloi in The Time Machine by HG Wells” Read more...
The Best Sci-Fi Romance Novels
Natasha Pulley, Novelist
The first book in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy is “a really strange novel,” admitted the novelist Natasha Pulley when she recommended the best sci-fi romance novels: “I’ve never read anything like it.” The eponymous Crake is a scientist who has genetically engineered a virus which has wiped out most of the world; now, a man called The Snowman must navigate the dark days that follow. “It’s very hallucinatory and weird,” warns Pulley. In many ways, Oryx and Crake is a darker and more unpleasant book than Atwood’s phenomenally successful The Handmaid’s Tale, in which the environmental disaster and social upheaval underpinning the plot largely take place offstage. Nevertheless, it’s a compelling vision of a tumultuous future and a love story—of a kind. If you were intrigued by the doomsday cult that arises in Station Eleven, then we think you’ll like this book too, in which a young man plays prophet to exploit the naive.
From our article Books like Station Eleven
“Historical fiction set in Canada around the mid-1800’s. Grace Marks, the main character, really was a person. She was put into prison for her role in the murder of a farming family.” Read more...
The best books on Navigating the Future: a reading list for young adults
Chris Kutarna, Political Scientist
“It’s ultimately so sad, but what stops it wallowing in despair is Atwood’s writing.” Read more...
Emma Jane Unsworth, Novelist
The Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret Atwood
🏆 Winner of the 1987 Arthur C Clarke Award for Science Fiction
Published in 1986, The Handmaid’s Tale is a haunting epistolary novel narrated by Offred, a woman living in a future America where environmental and societal breakdown have led to the establishment of a fundamentalist Christian theocracy. In Gilead, women have been stripped of their fundamental rights and reduced to their reproductive potential. Lesbians and other 'gender outlaws' are executed, as are doctors who conduct abortions.
The Handmaid's Tale was recognised as a modern classic and first adapted into a film in 1990. It reappeared in the headlines (and the bestseller lists) in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s US electoral victory, after which time the handmaid's bonnet became an icon of the feminist protest movement. More recently it was adapted as a multi-Emmy Award-winning television series starring Elisabeth Moss, who also narrates the audiobook of The Handmaid's Tale.
The sequel to The Handmaid's Tale is The Testaments, set 15 years later.
“Atwood takes all the hard information about gender inequality that she sees around her and then turns it up a few notches.” Read more...
The best books on Alternative Futures
Catherine Mayer, Politician
The Testaments: A Novel
by Margaret Atwood
🏆 Joint winner of the 2019 Booker Prize
Margaret Atwood's much-anticipated sequel to her seminal feminist dystopia The Handmaid's Tale was shortlisted for the Booker before it was released. Set 15 years after the close of The Handmaid's Tale, The Testaments is narrated by Aunt Lydia – who readers will remember as a cruel instructor during the handmaids' induction programme – and two younger women, Agnes and Daisy.
“Obviously the book is totally fascinating as a print book. What happened with the audiobook is that because of the Netflix adaptation, a lot of the actors who were in the Netflix program were used for the audiobook production. “ Read more...
The Blind Assassin
by Margaret Atwood
🏆 Winner of the 2000 Booker Prize
The Blind Assassin is Margaret Atwood's historical novel set in a fictional town in Canada.
Interviews where books by Margaret Atwood were recommended
Booker Prize-Winning Novels
The winner of the 2024 Booker Prize was Orbital, by Samantha Harvey, the first novel to win the prize that’s set in space. Below, our list of all the Booker Prize-winning novels of the last twenty years.
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1
The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of September 11, 2001
by Garrett Graff -
2
Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes
by Tony Kushner -
3
Becoming
by Michelle Obama -
4
Charlotte's Web
by E.B. White & Garth Williams (illustrator) -
5
The Dutch House
by Ann Patchett -
6
The Testaments: A Novel
by Margaret Atwood
The 2020 Audie Awards: Audiobook of the Year, recommended by Mary Burkey & Robin Whitten
The 2020 Audie Awards: Audiobook of the Year, recommended by Mary Burkey & Robin Whitten
Every year, the Audie Awards celebrate the best audiobooks published over the previous year. Veteran audiobook reviewer Robin Whitten of AudioFile Magazine and Mary Burkey, who has served on multiple audiobook judging panels, explain what makes a good audiobook and talk us through the brilliant books that were finalists in the 2020 ‘Audiobook of the Year’ category.
The Best Fiction of 2019, recommended by Peter Florence
Each year, a panel of esteemed judges reads over 100 novels to determine which titles will vie for the award of the Booker Prize for Fiction. Peter Florence, chair of the 2019 judges and founder of the famous Hay Festival, tells us why the books on this year’s shortlist are gripping, enthralling must-reads.
Epistolary Novels
Epistolary novels are told through the form of written correspondence between characters, or sometimes by way of diary entries or fictional documents. Though there were earlier examples, the epistolary novel took off as a form in the 18th century and remains very popular for its immediacy and sense of realism. We’ve put together a selection of epistolary novels—notable for their literary significance or their evergreen popularity—many of which have previously been recommended by our expert interviewees.
Great Actors Read Great Novels
If you enjoy listening to books as audiobooks, it’s a great time to be alive. From Rosamund Pike narrating Pride and Prejudice, Jeremy Irons reading Lolita to Meryl Streep telling the story of Heartburn, many prominent actors have signed up for performing their favourite books in unabridged versions.
The best books on Alternative Futures, recommended by Catherine Mayer
Catherine Mayer—author, journalist and president of the Women’s Equality Party—talks to Five Books about her optimism for a more equal future for society by way of her favourite science fiction visionaries and their work.
The best books on Friendship, recommended by Emma Jane Unsworth
The award-winning writer recommends the best books on friendship, the theme of her latest novel Animals.
The best books on Navigating the Future: a reading list for young adults, recommended by Chris Kutarna
We are living in times of unprecedented uncertainty and upheaval – and of unprecedented progress and opportunity. Chris Kutarna, political scientist and co-author of Age of Discovery, selects five books to help young adults navigate an uncertain future and achieve their full potential.
The Best Sci-Fi Romance Novels, recommended by Natasha Pulley
Sci fi opens up new possibilities for romance stories, unconstrained by social reality. It’s an exciting time for the genre, says Natasha Pulley, bestselling author of The Mars House. Through her five contemporary favourites, she explores how human emotion – including romantic love and friendship – elevates the best sci-fi novels, creating stories with realism and depth.
The best books on Progress, recommended by Matthew Taylor
What makes the most successful societies tick? The RSA’s Matthew Taylor says we should recognise that relationships and values are more important than scientific or economic advances
The best books on The Odyssey, recommended by Emily Wilson
The Odyssey has been constantly rewritten by centuries of writers, but like so much of Greek myth, it's always already open to revising its own narrative. Emily Wilson, Professor of Classics at the University of Pennsylvania and the first woman to translate the Odyssey into English, recommends the best books to read after (or alongside) the Ancient Greek epic, and offers sage wisdom about both translating ancient epics and why everyone can learn from the Odyssey today.
