I thought I would get a lot of summer reading done this summer. Ha! Then life happened and I was lucky to have crammed in one book over my holidays. One day while downtown, I picked up a copy of Margaret Atwood’s “Alias Grace” and set about reading it on my break.
I devoured it. Margaret Atwood is a literary genius and I have long been a fan of hers. When I was 16 I read “The Handmaid’s Tale” and it blew my mind wide open and I have since read most of her books. “Alias Grace” was phenomenal. You should read it. And all of Atwood’s other works, too.
With the summer days dwindling, I have recently started to read John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden” and it is swallowing me whole (in a good way). What a story! What a villain! Oh, the humanity!
Did you read anything wonderful this summer?
I love pretty much everything Margaret Atwood writes, but Alias Grace wasn’t my favourite. I would have to put The Handmaid’s Tale right up there (especially after discussing it in 4th year CanLit and realizing how much MORE there really was to it that I never got the first time). You should try Oryx and Crake – loved that one. Which reminds me…my 2nd fave CanLit giant: Robertson Davies. LOVED all his books, too. We grow some good authors here!
What did I read this summer? Lots of Young Adult, because a) it’s fun and easy and b) I’m teaching grade 5 this year and wanted to preview books for my classroom library (well at least that’s what I tell people, lol!) So I gobbled up all 5 Percy Jackson books, I read Divergent and The Maze Runner…I had done the Hunger Games trilogy last summer so didn’t need to read it this year. Oh…and I read the book my dad wrote, which hasn’t yet been published but is still in manuscript form.
Well, if you want to take this down a few literary notches, I read the Hunger Games trilogy. To be fair, the biggest semester of my life had ended and I needed to lighten up a little, and it was good. Worth the read. Nice and quick and entertaining.
Others I enjoyed this summer: Johnny Cash’s auto-biography, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s biography, The Virgin Cure by Ami McKay and Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel (a must read!) Oh and American Dervish. And Quiet.
I love the Handmaid’s Tale. I love and hate Margaret Atwood.
The Handmaid’s Tale is still my favourite book of all time. LOVE Margaret Atwood.
I read a lot this summer but, strangely, I can’t remember what so I guess they weren’t very memorable!
Oh my word, woman… I read “East of Eden” last summer – delicious. All of it. This summer I re-read “The Grapes of Wrath” which was heart-wrenching and wonderful and sad and poignant *swoons* I tell you, I’m all over Steinbeck – in the good way. LOVE!
You should follow Margaret Atwood on Le Twitter – she’s alumnae from the high school I attended in Toronto, so she was part of our required reading list. It felt crammed down my throat then, but I learned to love her, and I never stopped. She’s a gem, that lady. I should re-read all her works. Everyone should!!