It’s hard to believe that’s already time for another Margaret Atwood Reading Month #MARM in November 2021.

“Time is not running at its usual unvarying pace: it makes odd lurches.”
(From 1996’s Alias Grace)

For many, 2020 and 2021 have been challenging years; for many, looking ahead seems to hold even more challenges.

“I’m developing a knack for this, I can sniff out hidden misery in others now with hardly any effort at all.”
(From 1988’s Cats Eye)

But, here we are again. So, come inside, make yourselves at home.

Leave your footwear with Marian’s and Peter’s:

“Marian took off her own boots and stood them neatly beside Peter’s overshoes. ‘I hope they’ll follow our example,” Peter said. “I just had the floors done, I don’t want them getting all tracked up.’ With no others beside them yet, the two pairs looked like black leathery bait in a large empty newspaper trap.”
(From 1969’s The Edible Woman)

As usual, you can choose any way you like, to participate in #MARM, which might mean playing along with last year’s BINGO, or following along with older posts about books and stories, planning new readalongs with one another, watching a video, or simply chatting along in the comments, here or elsewhere.

Whether you’ve always meant to read her work, but haven’t begun, or you’ve read it all and enjoy rereading: find your way, with company.

“Did Shakespeare always know what he was doing, or was he sleepwalking part of the time? In the flow? Writing in a trance? Enacting an enchantment he himself was under?”
(From 2016’s Hag Seed)

As for me, I’ll be posting five times in November. I do have a theme in mind, which came to me during last year’s MARM, but I’m holding that as a surprise. (I’m still doing some reading for it. I hope it’s as enjoyable for you, when November comes around, as it has been for me.)

“Waiting is also a place; it is wherever you wait. For me it’s this room. I am a blank, here, between parentheses. Between other people.”
(From 1986’s The Handmaid’s Tale)

If there is a specific title you’re interested in reading, during the month, and would perhaps like some company, feel free to share your possibilities below: maybe some eager readers can make plans together for the month. Maybe someone will convince you to read some other title of hers instead. Or to venture into graphic novels or poetry.

“Leading her astray for motives different from the ones you’re supposed to have when you lead someone astray.”
(From 2015’s The Heart Goes Last)

Or, maybe you just want to view the MARMing from the sidelines. Be a spectator.

“When her grandmother died, Lesje felt she should be put into the Museum, in a glass case like the Egyptian mummies, with a label where you could read about her. An impossible idea, but this was the form her mourning took.”
(From 1982’s Life Before Man)

At the end of this month, I’ll compile participants’ links and add them to a new page for the event that will live here year-round. You can leave a link on this post, or on any of the November posts, and I’ll watch for them along the way.

“Important things often come into stories later, but also at the beginning. And in the middle as well.”
(From 2013’s Maddadam)

There have been some great discussions in the past and, for the most part, we MARM-readers are a well-behaved bunch. #realrecognizereal

“I even instructed them to stay rude and disrespectful things about me and Telemachus, and about Odysseus as well, in order to further the illusion.”
(From 2005’s The Penelopiad)

I couldn’t choose between that quotation and this one, for this transition! (They describe such different bookgroups! LOL)

“If you look like them and talk like them and think like them then you are them, I was saying, you speak their language, a language is everything you do.”
(From 1972’s Surfacing)

So, if you’ve participated before, you know what to do. And, if you’re new to the group, it’s simple, really.

“Where to start is the problem, because nothing begins when it begins and nothing’s over when it’s over, and everything needs a preface: a preface, a postscript, a chart of simultaneous events.”
(From 1991’s The Robber Bride).

We begin on November 1st! Start planning, share your plans, we’ll enjoy each other’s company!

“Time, however, is different when you’re shut up in the dark alone. It’s longer.”
(From 2019’s The Testaments)