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Published Sep 2006
240 pages
Genre: Short Stories
Publication Information
This book could be seen either as a collection of ten stories that is almost a novel or as a novel broken up into ten stories. It resembles a photograph album - a series of clearly observed moments that trace the course of a life, and also the lives intertwined with it - those of parents, of siblings, of children, of friends, of enemies, of teachers, and even of animals. And as in an album, times change: the 30s, the 40s, the 50s, the 60s, the 70s and 80s, the present time - all are here. The settings are equally varied: large cities, suburbs, farms, northern forests.
"Shaped by a Darwinian perspective, political astuteness, autobiographical elements, and a profound trust in literature, Atwood's stories evoke humankind's disastrous hubris and phenomenal spirit with empathy and bemusement." - Booklist.
"Though the episodic approach has its disjointed moments, Atwood provides a memorable mosaic of domestic pain and the surface tension of a troubled family." - PW.
"Crisp prose, vivid detail and imagery and a rich awareness of the unity of human generations, people and animals, and Nell's own exterior and inmost selves, make this one of Atwood's most accessible and engaging works yet." - Kirkus.
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa, and grew up in northern Ontario and Quebec, and in Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master's degree from Radcliffe College.
Atwood is the author of more than forty volumes of poetry, children's literature, fiction, and non-fiction, but is best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman (1969), The Handmaid's Tale (1985), The Robber Bride (1994), Alias Grace (1996), and The Blind Assassin, which won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2000. Her newest novel, MaddAddam (2013), is the final volume in a three-book series that began with the Man-Booker prize-nominated Oryx and Crake (2003) and continued with The Year of the Flood (2009). The Tent (mini-...
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