Book review: The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood
In my late teens and early 20s I read almost solely literary fiction, and in particular anything reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement or the broadsheets. This being before social media or Wikipedia, pretty much all I knew about each book would be one article I’d read in the paper. Back then I thought of Margaret Atwood as a literary fiction writer and I remember my surprise on discovering she also wrote brilliant science fiction.
These days I think of Atwood as primarily a writer of science, or speculative, fiction. So I experience the opposite surprise when I pick up one of her books that’s straightforward fiction. The Robber Bride was published in 1993, Atwood’s eighth novel, of which just one had been science fiction (The Handmaid’s Tale, 1985). It is loosely based on the folktale The Robber Bridegroom, but with all the major characters reimagined as women.
In October 1990 three old friends meet for lunch in Toronto. Roz, Charis and Tony met at college back in the 1960s, but the real reason they have stayed friends is Zenia – and their shared hatred of her. As they finish their lunch Zenia walks into the restaurant. Which is surprising as they held a funeral for her four and a half years ago, truly thinking her dead.
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I’ve never read The Odyssey, but for my degree I had to study James Joyce’s Ulysses, which involved a couple of lectures detailing how it follows the structure of Homer’s classic. I’ve intended ever since to give The Odyssey a go but 20 years have passed now. I suspect the closest I will come is modern reworks, including those that tell just part of the story. And the best I’ve read so far is Ithaca by 
Over Christmas and New Year I had almost two weeks off work, so I thought I’d power through four or five books. I’d wrap up cosily from the world in chunky knits and soft blankets; move from bed to sofa to rocking chair; interrupted only by dog walks and meal times. Ha! I think I forgot that Christmas is also a time for trying to see all the family and friends for quality time. And that’s lovely, but does mean despite the truly terrible weather keeping the dog walks short, reading time was also short.
The novel Our Wives Under the Sea by 
I am not a big fan of the novel-within-a-novel device. Invariably I find the secondary narrative either too dull or too abstract to keep my attention, and my interest is only held by the primary story. I found it a little odd, then, that the opposite happened with The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak.
Earlier this year I realised that most of the books on my TBR are serious in tone and/or topic, and I needed more fun reads to intersperse in-between. So when I had a day out with a friend in Bath and popped into 
Deborah Moggach is one of those authors I’ve seen recommended in many places over the last 20+ years. A few of her novels have been made into films (including These Foolish Things, which became The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) and she has written several screenplays as well. So when a family member was having a book clearout and offered me her novel Seesaw I jumped at it. I will not be jumping at her books in future.