The First Rule of Swimming
Courtney Angela Brkic, 2013
Little, Brown
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316217385
Summary
A woman must leave her island home to search for her missing sister-and confront the haunted history of her family.
Magdalena does not panic when she learns that her younger sister has disappeared. A free-spirit, Jadranka has always been prone to mysterious absences. But when weeks pass with no word, Magdalena leaves the isolated Croatian island where their family has always lived and sets off to New York to find her sister. Her search begins to unspool the dark history of their family, reaching back three generations to a country torn by war.
A haunting and sure-footed debut by an award-winning writer, The First Rule of Swimming explores the legacy of betrayal and loss in a place where beauty is fused inextricably with hardship, and where individuals are forced to make wrenching choices as they are swept up in the tides of history. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1972
• Where—Washington, D.C., and Arlington, Virginia, USA
• Education—College of William and Mary; M.F.A., New
York University
• Awards—Whiting Writers' Award
• Currently—lives near Washington, D.C.
Courtney Angela Brkic is Croatian American memoirist, short story writer, and novelist. A native of Washington, D.C., she grew up in Arlington, Virginia, and graduated from Yorktown High School. She studied archaeology at the College of William and Mary, and graduated from New York University with an MFA.
In 1996, she went to eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina as part of a Physicians for Human Rights forensic team, then worked as a summary translator for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. She has taught creative writing at New York University, the Cooper Union, and Kenyon College, where she held the Richard L. Thomas Chair in Creative Writing in 2006.
Her short story collection Stillness won the 2003 Whiting Writers' Award. Stone Fields, an exploration of the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica, was published in 2004. Her debut novel, The First Rule of Swimming, came out in 2013.
Brkic is also the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts and Literature grant, a Fulbright Scholarship to research women in Croatia's war-afflicted population, and a New York Times fellowship. She teaches at George Mason University and lives near Washington, D.C. with her husband and son. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/6/2013.)
Book Reviews
The violent history of postwar Croatia, from 1945 until the turn of the millennium, created three generations of dislocated people…Courtney Angela Brkic conveys all these dislocations with empathy and poetic grace…The First Rule of Swimming examines lives bruised and twisted by history, like weather-beaten trees that nevertheless manage to produce the sweetest fruit.
Brooke Allen - New York Times Book Review
Two sisters from a remote Croatian...Magdalena, the elder sister and a schoolteacher, leads a Spartan, practically celibate...while Jadranka is an unpredictable redhead.... When the sisters' American cousin Katarina unexpectedly invites Jadranka to live in New York City, several generations' worth of secrets begin to unravel... Brkic juggles too many perspectives and gets bogged down in back-story, when the present-day action and the fraught triangle between the sisters and their estranged mother Ana is what is most absorbing.
Publishers Weekly
Brkic's a special writer whose works hit me right in the heart.... So take a good look at her first novel, whose heroine must set out to New York from the remote Croatian island where she lives to find her free-spirited sister. Instead, she uncovers some family darkness. In-house raves.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) In her exquisitely crafted, superbly structured novel, Brkic summons undertones of Greek tragedy to create her arresting characters and their intense emotions and dire secrets. By dramatizing nuanced questions of who is at fault, who can be trusted, and who will sink or swim, Brkic reveals persistent, multigenerational wounds of war, sacrifice, exile, and longing and imagines how healing might commence. —Donna Seaman
Booklist
Magdalena is...content to remain a spinster schoolteacher [on her remote Croatian island]. But the disappearance of Jadranka, a gifted artist who had gone to visit a cousin in New York City, prompts her sister to begin an odyssey that uncovers some ugly secrets about their family and the agonized history of the former Yugoslavia. Brkic's well-crafted narrative...affirming[s] the power of love and forgiveness...but...remind[s] us that...reunions can't necessarily heal every wound or change a person's destiny. A few unnecessarily melodramatic plot twists only slightly mar a sensitive tale of deep emotional force.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.
Emergency Care
Linda Owen, 2014
Westbow Press
290 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781490814001
Summary
In Mexico, Hurricane Bertha flattened tobacco crops and coffee bean fields and demolished entire villages. Then suddenly she turned northward—a surprising act that had not been foreseen by meteorologists.
After twelve hours, the winds that had reached 180 miles per hour would slow, and the storm would die. But before that, Bertha would terrorize the unsuspecting residents of a South Texas hospital and the bank robbers holding them hostage.
It is a toss-up whether nurse Sidney Shelton is more afraid of the thugs or the hurricane. For hours the captors threaten and brutalize the hostages. Sidney wonders whether they will be dead or alive when the robbers leave. What can she do to protect her six-year-old son and friends from harm? God sends her unexpected help from a Mexican policeman and a soldier with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—San Marcos, Texas, USA
• Education—B.S., Southwest Texas University; M.Div., Perkins School of Theology
• Currently—lives in San Antonio, Texas
Linda Owen has had thousands of articles published. She is a regular writer on faith, retirement, travel, and general interest subjects for a variety of newspapers and magazines, both secular and Christian.
She received a Master of Divinity Degree from Perkins School of Theology (SMU) and served briefly as the pastor in churches. Linda teaches a weekly Bible study and has written Bible Study Curriculum for the United Methodist Publishing House. For five years she edited www.saworship.com, a Christian magazine. She is also the author of Lady President, a romantic suspense.(From the author.)
Visit the author's website.
See article on Linda.
Book Reviews
If you like your suspense fast paced with non-stop action and surprise twists, then check out Emergency Care, the debut novel by Linda Owen. With a definite edgy tone, this novel is a quick read that packs a clear spiritual message.
Four dangerous men make their way to a small Texas town near the Mexican border trying to elude the police after a murder and bank robbery. An accident puts them in the ER of the local hospital along with a small holiday staff and a hurricane bearing down on them. They take the patients and staff hostage and try to ride out the storm, but events are soon out of their control.
There are a number of surprises in store for the reader of Emergency Care. Just when you think you know what is going to happen next, Owen throws a curve ball to ramp up the adrenaline.... As I said, this is an edgy novel. Never graphic, it does contain some violence and adult situations, but no profanity. A good choice for fans of Brandilyn Collins or Steven James.
Beckie Burnham - By The Book
Discussion Questions
1. What was unique about the hospital setting and how did it enhance or take away from the story? Was the hurricane relevant or not?
2. What specific themes did the author emphasize throughout the novel? What do you think she is trying to get across to the reader?
3. Do you think the Lone Ranger motif relates to the character of Perry? Why or why not?
4. Several characters change or evolve throughout the course of the story. Which one was your favorite? What events trigger such changes?
5. Did certain parts of the book make you uncomfortable? If so, why did you feel that way?
6. Did the author lead you to a new understanding or awareness of God’s role in your life?
7. What made you want to read this book? Did it live up to your expectations? Why or why not?
8. Discuss the book's structure. Does the author use any narrative devices like flashbacks or multiple voices in telling the story? What do you consider the climax of the novel? Would you have preferred it to end then, instead of showing the effect of the horrific experience on the survivors?
9. Do you think suffering makes people closer to God or causes them to distance themselves from Him? What has been the pattern in your life?
10. Were you satisfied with Sidney’s answers to Jamie about God and her illness? (See chapter 24.) What else would you have told the girl? Have you seen God working through human beings to accomplish His plan? When?
11. Do you believe in the healing power of God? Even if there is no healing miracle, where do you see God at work?
12. Were you in agreement with Ruby’s explanation to Jim about suffering in the world? She cites Rom. 8:28. Do you have a Bible verse that you prefer?
13. Do you agree with what Pastor Charles says about taking another person’s life? About God’s forgiveness? If you were in Sidney’s place, would the clergyman’s counsel have helped you?
14. How effectively does the author portray the presence of spirituality in the characters' lives? Does the author succeed in presenting prayer in a way that feels relevant? Are there specific characters whose beliefs resonate with yours?
15. What do you see as the major message of the novel?
16. What does Jesus say about forgiveness that relates to your life?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)
Dear Daughter
Elizabeth Little, 2014
Viking Adult
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780670016389
Summary
Former "It Girl" Janie Jenkins is sly, stunning, and fresh out of prison. Ten years ago, at the height of her fame, she was incarcerated for the murder of her mother, a high-society beauty known for her good works and rich husbands.
Now, released on a technicality, Janie makes herself over and goes undercover, determined to chase down the one lead she has on her mother’s killer. The only problem? Janie doesn’t know if she’s the killer she’s looking for.
Janie makes her way to an isolated South Dakota town whose mysteries rival her own. Enlisting the help of some new friends (and the town’s wary police chief), Janie follows a series of clues—an old photograph, an abandoned house, a forgotten diary—and begins to piece together her mother’s seemingly improbable connection to the town.
When new evidence from Janie’s own past surfaces, she’s forced to consider the possibility that she and her mother were more alike than either of them would ever have imagined.
As she digs tantalizingly deeper, and as suspicious locals begin to see through her increasingly fragile facade, Janie discovers that even the sleepiest towns hide sinister secrets—and will stop at nothing to guard them. On the run from the press, the police, and maybe even a murderer, Janie must choose between the anonymity she craves and the truth she so desperately needs.
A gripping, electrifying debut novel with an ingenious and like-it-or-not sexy protagonist, Dear Daughter follows every twist and turn as Janie unravels the mystery of what happened the night her mother died—whatever the cost. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—St. Louis, Missouri, USA
• Education—B.A., Harvard University
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
A graduate of Harvard University, Elizabeth Little is the author of the nonfiction books Biting the Wax Tadpole and Trip of the Tongue. She lives in Los Angeles with her family.. (From .)
Book Reviews
Little keeps you guessing until the end—and then closes her book with a final, twisted flourish.
Daneet Steffens - Boston Globe
Engrossing.... The unlikable protagonist with a biting personality and outrageous actions, but who is fascinating at the same time, has never been more popular. Just think of Gone Girl. In her confident fiction debut, Elizabeth Little puts a fresh spin on this character in the form of Jane Jenkins, a young woman famous for being famous until she was sent to prison for the murder of her wealthy socialite mother. Little also makes Dear Daughter a parable about the cult of the celebrity stoked by a relentless press and a ruthless public’s thirst for details of a woman it loves to hate.
Associated Press
This is not your mother’s mystery. The clever, prickly and profane heroine is, after all, a former It Girl whose aim as a teen was to be the next Paris Hilton, only better.... Sassy and lively.... The book’s satisfying conclusion somehow manages to tie things up while also providing a cliffhanger, a pretty neat trick for a debut novel.
Colleen Kelly - Minneapolis Star Tribune
[A] fun and riveting debut mystery.
San Diego Union Tribune
When former It Girl Janie Jenkins is released from prison, she embarks on a mission to discover if it was really she who murdered her mother. The debut novel’s twists will easily hook you, but it’s the narrator’s dark wit and sharp observations that make this a truly fun read.”
Entertainment Weekly
A former It Girl hunts down her mom’s murderer in this can’t-put-down thriller.”
Cosmopolitan
In prison for her mother’s murder, L.A. socialite Jane Jenkins is released on a technicality. To track down the real killer Jane gets plain, goes underground and stirs up dangerous amounts of dirt in her mom’s South Dakota hometown.”
Good Housekeeping
[An] assured fiction debut... Little effectively intersperses outside perspective in the form of emails, text messages, and other communications in Jane’s entertainingly caustic first-person narrative.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Little makes a thrilling debut with this gripping read. Fans of Tana French and Gillian Flynn are going to enjoy the smart narrator and the twists and turns in the case. —Robin Nesbitt, Columbus Metropolitan Lib., OH
Library Journal
Stunning and chilling.... A harrowing story that will keep readers on the edge of their seat. The ending is like a punch in the nose, coming out of nowhere and leaving readers breathless. Whether you take this mystery to the beach or relax in front of your air conditioner, this is a novel you should not miss.
Bookreporter.com
Agatha Christie meets Kim Kardashian in this sharp-edged, tart-tongued, escapist thriller.... The town is like one of Christie’s closed rooms—someone who lives there holds the key.... This is breezy reading: nothing too deep or disturbing, and stronger on style than plot.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime, use our generic mystery questions.)
GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers
1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they more one-dimensional heroes and villains?
2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you, the reader, begin to piece together what happened?
3. Good crime writers are skillful at hiding clues in plain sight. How well does the author hide the clues in this work?
4. Does the author use red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray?
5. Talk about plot's twists & turns—those surprising developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray. Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense? Are they plausible? Or do the twists & turns feel forced and preposterous—inserted only to extend the story.
6. Does the author ratchet up the story's suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? How does the author build suspense?
7. What about the ending—is it satisfying? Is it probable or believable? Does it grow out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 2). Or does the ending come out of the blue? Does it feel forced...tacked-on...or a cop-out? Or perhaps it's too predictable. Can you envision a better, or different, ending?
8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?
9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?
(Generic Mystery Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Winter Guest
Pam Jenoff, 2014
Harlequin
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780778315964
Summary
A stirring novel of first love in a time of war and the unbearable choices that could tear sisters apart, from the celebrated author of The Kommandant's Girl
Life is a constant struggle for the eighteen-year-old Nowak twins as they raise their three younger siblings in rural Poland under the shadow of the Nazi occupation. The constant threat of arrest has made everyone in their village a spy, and turned neighbor against neighbor.
Though rugged, independent Helena and pretty, gentle Ruth couldn't be more different, they are staunch allies in protecting their family from the threats the war brings closer to their doorstep with each passing day.
Then Helena discovers an American paratrooper stranded outside their small mountain village, wounded, but alive. Risking the safety of herself and her family, she hides Sam—a Jew—but Helena's concern for the American grows into something much deeper. Defying the perils that render a future together all but impossible, Sam and Helena make plans for the family to flee.
But Helena is forced to contend with the jealousy her choices have sparked in Ruth, culminating in a singular act of betrayal that endangers them all—and setting in motion a chain of events that will reverberate across continents and decades. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
• Education—B.A., George Washington University; M.A., Cambridge University; J.D., University of Pennsylvania
• Currently—lives in Cherry Hill, New Jersey
Pam Jenoff was born in Maryland and raised outside Philadelphia. She attended George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and Cambridge University in England.
Upon receiving her master's in history from Cambridge, she accepted an appointment as Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Army. The position provided a unique opportunity to witness and participate in operations at the most senior levels of government, including helping the families of the Pan Am Flight 103 victims secure their memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, observing recovery efforts at the site of the Oklahoma City bombing and attending ceremonies to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of World War II at sites such as Bastogne and Corregidor.
Following her work at the Pentagon, Pam moved to the State Department. In 1996 she was assigned to the U.S. Consulate in Krakow, Poland. It was during this period that Pam developed her expertise in Polish-Jewish relations and the Holocaust. Working on matters such as preservation of Auschwitz and the restitution of Jewish property in Poland, Pam developed close relations with the surviving Jewish community.
Pam left the Foreign Service in 1998 to attend law school and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. She worked for several years as a labor and employment attorney both at a firm and in-house in Philadelphia and now teaches law school at Rutgers.
Pam is the author of The Kommandant's Girl, which was an international bestseller and nominated for a Quill award, as well as The Diplomat's Wife, The Ambassador's Daughter, Almost Home, A Hidden Affair and The Things We Cherished.
She lives outside Philadelphia with her husband and three children. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
I have not been so moved by a book in quite some time as I was by The Kommandant's Girl ...The remarkably accurate account of a world at war, and the repercussions of that war make this a brilliant debut novel...I could not put the book down, yet was sad to see it end.
Historical Romance Writers
Jenoff excels in her vivid portrayal of the deprivation and corrosive fear that afflicted those dwelling under Nazi aggression.... In the end, The Winter Guest proves compulsive as it races to its desperate denouement, the finale a moving testament to the suffering endured during the war.
Historical Novel Society
Brisk, romantic and emotionally satisfying.
Booklist
Successful and satisfying...[Jenoff] expertly draws out the tension and illustrates the danger and poverty of Eastern Europe as it falls under communism. Highly recommended for all fiction collections.
Library Journal
An 18-year-old Polish girl falls in love, swoons over a first kiss, dreams of marriage—and, oh yes, we are in the middle of the Holocaust.... [It is] the early 1940s, as the Nazis invade Poland and herd Jews into ghettos and concentration camps.... Romance and melodrama mix uneasily with mass murder.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Which sister did you identify with more closely, Helena or Ruth? If you have a sibling, were you able to relate to their rivalry, camaraderie, and the distinct role each of them played in the family?
2. Were there things that you wished Helena had done differently throughout the book? Under what circumstances would you make a decision like Helena’s—one that put yourself and potentially the ones you love at risk? Would you have helped Sam, or looked the other way to protect your family?
3. Despite the horrors of war, a romantic view of WWI and WWII abounds in historical novels. What is it about wartime that drew men and women together so powerfully, like Helena and Sam? Do you believe it is possible for people to fall in love so quickly and for such a love to last?
4. How did each of the sisters’ strengths and weaknesses come to light in the story—and what role did Sam play?
5. Discuss the sisters’ relationship as it evolved throughout the book. Do you think it improved or deteriorated by the end?
6. The Nowak sisters were young women dealing with situations that were completely overwhelming, especially at such a young age. What do you think each really wanted out of life, and in your view were those dreams achievable?
7. Did you identify with any symbolic items or places throughout the book? What did they represent to you?
8. Helena’s feelings toward the Jews, and the Poles’ views of the Jews, were multi-faceted throughout the book. What was your reaction to these varying perspectives?
9. Were you surprised to learn what had happened to the Nowaks at the end of the book? Did you feel it was the appropriate ending for each of the characters?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)
Stone Mattress: Nine Tales
Margaret Atwood, 2014
Knopf Doubleday
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 978038553912#
Summary
A collection of highly imaginative short pieces that speak to our times with deadly accuracy. Vintage Atwood creativity, intelligence, and humor: think Alias Grace.
Margaret Atwood turns to short fiction for the first time since her 2006 collection, Moral Disorder, with nine tales of acute psychological insight and turbulent relationships bringing to mind her award-winning 1996 novel, Alias Grace.
♦ A recently widowed fantasy writer is guided through a stormy winter evening by the voice of her late husband in "Alphinland," the first of three loosely linked stories about the romantic geometries of a group of writers and artists.
♦ In "The Freeze-Dried Bridegroom," a man who bids on an auctioned storage space has a surprise.
♦ In "Lusus Naturae," a woman born with a genetic abnormality is mistaken for a vampire.
♦ In "Torching the Dusties," 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.
♦ And in "Stone Mattress," a long-ago crime is avenged in the Arctic via a 1.9 billion-year-old stromatolite.
In these nine tales, Margaret Atwood is at the top of her darkly humorous and seriously playful game. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 18, 1939
• Where—Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
• Education—B.A., University of Toronto; M.A. Radcliffe; Ph.D., Harvard University
• Awards—Governor General's Award; Booker Prize; Giller Award
• Currently—lives in Toronto, Canada
Margaret Eleanor Atwood, is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. She is among the most-honoured authors of fiction in recent history. She is a winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award and Prince of Asturias Award for Literature, has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize five times, winning once, and has been a finalist for the Governor General's Award several times, winning twice. She is also a founder of the Writers' Trust of Canada, a non-profit literary organization that seeks to encourage Canada's writing community.
Early life
Born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Atwood is the second of three children of Margaret Dorothy (nee Killam), a former dietitian and nutritionist, and Carl Edmund Atwood, an entomologist. Due to her father’s ongoing research in forest entomology, Atwood spent much of her childhood in the backwoods of Northern Quebec and traveling back and forth between Ottawa, Sault Ste. Marie, and Toronto. She did not attend school full-time until she was in grade 8. She became a voracious reader of literature, Dell pocketbook mysteries, Grimm's Fairy Tales, Canadian animal stories, and comic books. She attended Leaside High School in Leaside, Toronto, and graduated in 1957.
Atwood began writing at the age of six and realized she wanted to write professionally when she was 16. In 1957, she began studying at Victoria College in the University of Toronto, where she published poems and articles in Acta Victoriana, the college literary journal. Her professors included Jay Macpherson and Northrop Frye. She graduated in 1961 with a Bachelor of Arts in English (honours) and a minor in philosophy and French.
In late 1961, after winning the E.J. Pratt Medal for her privately printed book of poems, Double Persephone, she began graduate studies at Harvard's Radcliffe College with a Woodrow Wilson fellowship. She obtained a master's degree (MA) from Radcliffe in 1962 and pursued further graduate studies at Harvard University for two years but did not finish her dissertation, “The English Metaphysical Romance." She has taught at the University of British Columbia (1965), Sir George Williams University in Montreal (1967–68), the University of Alberta (1969–70), York University in Toronto (1971–72), the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa (1985), where she was visiting M.F.A. Chair, and New York University, where she was Berg Professor of English.
Personal life
In 1968, Atwood married Jim Polk; they were divorced in 1973. She formed a relationship with fellow novelist Graeme Gibson soon after and moved to a farm near Alliston, Ontario, north of Toronto, where their daughter was born in 1976. The family returned to Toronto in 1980.
Other genres
While she is best known for her work as a novelist, she has also published fifteen books of poetry. Many of her poems have been inspired by myths and fairy tales, which have been interests of hers from an early age. Atwood has published short stories in Tamarack Review, Alphabet, Harper's, CBC Anthology, Ms., Saturday Night, and many other magazines. She has also published four collections of stories and three collections of unclassifiable short prose works.
Atwood has also produced several children's books, including Princess Prunella and the Purple Peanut (1995) and Rude Ramsay and the Roaring Radishes (2003)—delicious alliterative delights that introduce a wealth of new vocabulary to young readers
Speculative fiction vs. sci-fic
The Handmaid's Tale received the first Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987. The award is given for the best science fiction novel that was first published in the United Kingdom during the previous year. It was also nominated for the 1986 Nebula Award, and the 1987 Prometheus Award, both science fiction awards.
Atwood was at one time offended at the suggestion that The Handmaid's Tale or Oryx and Crake were science fiction, insisting to the UK's Guardian that they were speculative fiction instead: "Science fiction has monsters and spaceships; speculative fiction could really happen." She told the Book of the Month Club: "Oryx and Crake is a speculative fiction, not a science fiction proper. It contains no intergalactic space travel, no teleportation, no Martians."
She clarified her meaning on the difference between speculative and science fiction, admitting that others use the terms interchangeably: "For me, the science fiction label belongs on books with things in them that we can't yet do.... [S]peculative fiction means a work that employs the means already to hand and that takes place on Planet Earth." She said that science fiction narratives give a writer the ability to explore themes in ways that realistic fiction cannot.
Environmentalism
Although Atwood's politics are commonly described as being left-wing, she has indicated in interviews that she considers herself a Red Tory in the historical sense of the term. Atwood, along with her partner Graeme Gibson, is a member of the Green Party of Canada (GPC) and has strong views on environmental issues. She and Gibson are the joint honorary presidents of the Rare Bird Club within BirdLife International. She has been chair of the Writers' Union of Canada and president of PEN Canada, and is currently a vice president of PEN International. In a Globe and Mail editorial, she urged Canadians to vote for any other party to stop a Conservative majority.
During the debate in 1987 over a free trade agreement between Canada and the United States, Atwood spoke out against the deal, and wrote an essay opposing the agreement.
Atwood celebrated her 70th birthday at a gala dinner at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, marking the final stop of her international tour to promote The Year of the Flood. She stated that she had chosen to attend the event because the city has been home to one of Canada's most ambitious environmental reclamation programs: "When people ask if there's hope (for the environment), I say, if Sudbury can do it, so can you. Having been a symbol of desolation, it's become a symbol of hope." (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/17/2013.)
Book Reviews
An obsession with aging and dying unites much of Stone Mattress, and Atwood, more than 40 books into her career, has arrived here preoccupied not just with the churn of generations but also with legacy and reputation, with getting straight the story of one’s life—the tale about the tale—and with surviving what happens once no one is paying any attention anymore.... Witty and frequently biting, Stone Mattress is keen to the ways in which we choose, all our lives, to love and to hurt—and in Atwood’s world these two actions are always choices, creating consequences for which we will one day be held to account.
Matt Bell - New York Times Book Review
(Starred review.) Atwood, a bestselling master of fiction, delivers a stunning collection...[and] brings her biting wit to bear on the battle of the sexes....[Given Atwood's] wild imagination...it's clear that this grande dame is at the top of her game.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Aging and death reverberate throughout Atwood's (MaddAddam) excellent collection.... Poignant, funny, distressing, and surreal, Atwood's stories bring the extraordinary to the ordinary. For Atwood devotees and literary fiction fans. —Joy Humphrey, Pepperdine Univ. Law Lib.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Shrewdly brilliant, gleefully mischievous, and acerbically hilarious...Atwood has the raptor's penetrating gaze, speed, and agility and never misses her mark.
Booklist
Clever tales about writers, lovers and other weirdos. This, explains Atwood in the acknowledgements, is a book of tales, not stories, which means that it's removed "at least slightly from the realm of mundane works and days."... Up to her old tricks and not dropping a card.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)