Booktober: 30 Books Everyone Will Be Talking About This Fall
Autumn is the season of plenty—especially if you love to read. Here are the best of the best from this year's bountiful harvest of uncommonly strong offerings.
9 of 30
Stone Mattress
By Margaret Atwood
288 pages;
Nan A. Talese/Doubleday
In her latest work, Atwood turns her protean talents to an examination of the frailties of the human heart. These exuberantly told tales are a tour de force of wit, style and discernment, blending elements of fantasy and horror: A 60-something woman on an Arctic cruise encounters the man who raped her as a teenager; an ailing narcissistic poet is harassed by the lovers he's mistreated. As one character notes, "Things have a habit of coming full circle: a bad habit."
— Hamilton Cain
Published 09/25/2014
