Unless this is your first MARM, you know I’m terrible for falling behind with periodical reading, which is to say that I felt super-on-top-of-things this week, while reading the October 18th Book Review in the NYT, but what fun to find that week’s “By the Book” with Bonnie Garmus and her answer to the “literary dinner party question” (i.e. whom to invite) is appropriately MARM-themed. For her dinner, she’s inviting:
“Margaret Atwood because she’s Margaret Atwood, but also because our dads were both entomologists and I thought we could talk about how many times we’ve been bitten, and by what.”
(Also invited by Garmus: you’re curious aren’t you? Mark Twain for being “funny and fearless” and Susan Orlean for “her ability to make even the smallest stories sting.”)
In the Zeit-MARMst or MARM-Geist:
- Rebecca and Kaggsy have been planning ahead; and,
- Bill has posted his thoughts on Bodily Harm.
MARM 2026 PLANS
Launch (November 1)
Survival: One, Two, Three (November 4)
Week Two: Update and Check-In (November 8)
Survival: Four, Five, Six (November 11)
Week Three: Update and Check-In (November 15)
Margaret Atwood’s 87th Birthday (November 18)
Survival: Seven, Eight, Nine (November 18)
Week Four: Update and Check-In (November 22)
Survival: Ten, Eleven, Twelve (November 25)
Wrap-Up (November 30)
To Watch, New for #MARM2026:
Last week, a video from the October ceremony from “Journalists for Human Rights” was uploaded, with MA’s keynote address in accepting the JHR Award for Extraordinary Achievement for using “storytelling to defend human rights and give voice to those silenced by oppression”.
Her work has “repeatedly confronted authoritarianism and the erosion of rights” through novels like The Handmaid’s Tale, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, and the Maddaddam trilogy, say the JHR, and she has “long advocated for writers facing censorship and persecution around the world.”
Presented by Lisa Laflamme (fired, at least in part, because she wouldn’t stop talking about Ukraine and she refused to dye her hair), she describes MA as “one of the most banned authors worldwide” and cites her favourite quote (which I’ve lifted for this week’s flipbox at the bottom here).
In other November reading:
I’ve got SciFi Month in mind, reading Mat Johnson’s Invisible Things (2022) which opens like this: “After months in deep space conductng an intensive field study of social dynamics aboard the cryoship SS Delany, Nalini Jackson, NASAx Post-Doctorate Fellow of Applied Sociology, D.S. Sc., came to an uncomfortable conclusion: She didn’t really like people, on the whole.” The first chapter is twenty-five pages of characterisation and life on a space ship, and then something happens, and I was hooked. (1/4 read)
#SciFiMonth2026 Challenge Hosts: Annemieke at A Dance with Books, Emma at Words and Peace, imvril at There’s Always Room for One More, Lisa of Dear Geek Place, and Mayri at Bookforager (Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Klaus Pontoppidan (STScI) | Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI); Text: Dolly Parton. RIP, Queen. And Shakespeare.)
For German Literature Month, I’m reading Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks, because Edwin Frank was gushing about it in Stranger than Fiction (2025). It’s Mann’s first novel, published in 1901, and I’m reading the translation by H.T. Lowe-Porter. So far one character has died, another has been born, and there’s a lot of talk about dinner and inheritance. This seems appropriate, somehow, and the chapters are short, so I just read a few, feel as though nothing has happened, but in a comfortable way, but I’m wondering if that will hold for 800 pages. (1/8 read)
#GermanLitMonth Challenge Hosts: Caroline at Beauty is a Sleeping Cat, Tony at Tony’s Reading List and (previously) Lizzy of Lizzy’s Literary Life
For Novellas in November, I’ve pulled Damion Searls’s Analog Days (2025) from the shelf, which someone was super enthusiastic about so now I am too. I’ve just finished two novellas by Quebecois authors that left me feeling a little puzzled, so I’m hoping this leaves me feeling a little less unmoored. Near the end of October, I posted about other novellas I’ve read this year, including Conor Kerr’s Beaver Hills Forever, which might make my favourites list for this year. (Well, I’m calling it a novella, but I’m not sure that’s how he sees it.)
#NovNov26 Challenge Hosts: Cathy at 746 Books and Rebecca at Bookish Beck
For Reading Scotland Month, I’m reading Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped (1886), because I read Treasure Island last year for Kaggsy’s annual celebration on November 12, and wanted to read on in my fancy-schmancy-cutting-edge-in-1978-omnibus. Actually, I learned of this challenge from Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings, so I didn’t get to thinking about other options, but now it feels like I’m noticing Scottish writers everywhere! Isn’t that always the way. (First chapter read)
#ReadingScotland26 Challenge Host: Joanne at Portobello Book Blog
With the spirit of the Nonfiction November in mind, I’ve got a little stack of non-fiction that I’ve been reading in fits-and-starts all year, and I’ve resolved to finish them all this month. So I’ve read a couple more chapters in Edwin Frank’s book (see Buddenbrooks). And I’ve restarted my it’ll-take-all-year non-fiction choice for 2026, David Graeber and David Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything, which is eleventy-billion pages long, but November could make up for having spent most of my summer with novels. This year has been slight for NF for me, but I will post about pairings later this month. (1/2 read)
#NonFicNov26 Challenge Hosts: Heather at Based on a True Story, Frances at Volatile Rune, Liz at Adventures in Reading, Running and Working from Home, and Deb at Reader Buzz
Some of these challenges are new-to-me (if I’ve got anything wrong, please let me know), and I’m just going to see how I do, adding in one book timed for the theme this year. Earlier this year I read one book by a Scottish writer (Walter Scott) and one by a German writer (Jenny Erpenbeck) and I’ve read a few SF books, including this year’s winner of the UKLG Prize for Fiction, Audition. I’m interested in reading more! (Always.)
How has your reading been, so far, in November?
Margaret Atwood
“We lived, as usual, by ignoring.”
The Handmaid’s Tale
I’m not sure who I could invite to dinner without feeling intimidated. UKLG maybe, because she’s so nice, and I could ask her what she really thought about MA writing SF.
I’ve bought Mat Johnson’s Invisible Things on my Libro.fm acount. It’s easier to buy than to add to the list in the back of my diary. I’m listening to another of your recommendations at the moment Ruins by Lily Brooks-Dalton so you’ll have finished Invisible Things before I get the chance to start.
I’m sure the appearance of your Comment box has changed, have you updated your code?
I’m hoping to get my MARM post out this week – I’m afraid its a tiny sliver of reading!
I sympathise: it’s a very busy reading month! (And I know you have other things keeping you busy besides that.)
Gosh, you are squeezing them all in for November! And d’oh, I wasn’t doing joined up thinking – I could have read RLS for Scotland this year, but i don’t think I’m going to fit anything in for RLS Day alas…
Well you have done your bit for RLS Day already! Last year was my first–after so many years of forgetting it, and then a couple of remembering but not having left enough time–but I was glad to have read Treasure Island (despite it being rather bloody), so we’ll see if Kidnapped is just as satisfying (and bloody!).
Ha, that’s a great answer from Garmus. Chris would enjoy the geeky entomological chat! Special interests (chemistry vs. poetry) are present in both of her novels.
Reading Scotland Month was a challenge too far for me. Had one of my novellas happened to be by a Scot, that would have been doable, but I don’t think I found one.
I’m in the thick of 3 MA books (plus her daughter’s stories). I’ll post on her birthday and then probably one other time.
It immediately got me thinking about all the bugs that have bitten me and have gone uncategorised while I scratched. #underachiever
I was roaming about the shelves and remembered that I’d wanted to reread Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s trilogy and I have another Walter Scott down for 2027 and I’ve been craving a reread of D.E. Stevenson’s Miss Buncle books (I never did finish that trilogy), and only then did I realise I’d already planned on RLS. I think maybe I’m more interested in the Scot’s than I thought?
Amazing! I read “He is a Strange Biological Phenomenon” this morning. And thought… whaaaaa? (I’ll have one more novellas post for the Quebecois writers and whatever else fits in, probably towards the end after some deadlines.)