This book is full of short stories - and I had read one previously (My Evil Mother).

If you like Margaret Atwood, you will love this book.

For me, it was an "in-between-books" - book, meaning I read it while reading another book...

Totally loved it !

Would totally recommend !!!!

So I know semi recently Atwood was sharing and defending a transphobic article, which was really disappointing to see. I decided to read this anyway, while knowing I was probably going to be more critical of her work in light of that, rather than being inclined to read her more generously. And I do think I would have liked this more if she hadn't done that, because I've liked other works I've read of hers in the past, and used to probably be biased towards thinking whatever she wrote was good.

That said, overall I did like this collection. Some of the stories were more engaging than others, and the one that's just an interview between her and Orwell was by far my least favorite. But I liked both the ones about the "main character" of sorts, though her grief hit a little too close to home at times (for one of them I wrote "fuck. This one is good but I hate it. It would be good to read if. If. I don't want to ever want to read this"), and the ones that were entirely standalone (my favorite was the alien one). I'm not the biggest fan of short story collections in general, if only because it takes me longer to get through them when I'm constantly having to readjust to an entirely new story/world/premise. But overall I did like this book, all things considered.

Thanks to Netgalley and Doubleday Books for the chance to read and review this ARC.

15 short [and a couple that aren't all that short] stories by the amazing Margaret Atwood. Here is the breakdown [buckle up buttercup! ;-) ]

1. First Aid [read by Kimberly Farr] - 4 Stars <--a strong start with a good narrator
2. Two Scorched Men [read by Kimberly Farr] - 3 Stars
3. Morte de Smudgie [read by Margaret Atwood] 4 Stars <--LOVELY, but T E A R S.
4. My Evil Mother [read by Rebecca Lowman] 5 Stars <--I had read this one previously and I loved it just as much this time around as I did the first time. SO FREAKING FUN.
5. The Dead Interview [read by Margaret Atwood and Allan Corduner as George Orwell] 5 stars <--THIS was my second favorite of the whole series. It was just so fun.
6. Impatient Griselda [read by Dan Stevens] 4 Stars but E W!!!! ;-)
7. Bad Teeth [read by Linda Lavin] 3 Stars [borderline 2 Stars] <--Totally meh.
8. Death by Clam-shell [read by Linda Lavin] 5 Stars <--VERY good. I liked this one a lot.
9. Freeforall [read by Linda Lavin] 4 Stars
10. Metempsychosis or, The Journey of the Soul [read by Bahni Turpin] 3 Stars. <--Just okay. Kind of weird. Not my favorite.
11. Airborne: A Symposium [read by Dawn Harvey] 1 Star. Ugh.
12. A Dusty Lunch [read by Margaret Atwood] 2 Stars
13. Widows [read by Kimberly Farr] 3 Stars <--Parts of this were really good and then WHAM it just would dissolve into meh.
14. Wooden Box [read by Margaret Atwood] 2 Stars <--My experience with this one is the same as #13
15. Old Babes in the Woods [read by Margaret Atwood] 4 Stars [almost 5] <--This reminded me of how I am sure the bestie and I will be when we are ancient [though I don't see us EVER camping in the woods as I am not really an outdoor kind of girl] and it made me verklempt several time. A good way to end the stories.

Overall, this was a decent set of stories. I mean, its Margaret Atwood and its rare to read something by her that isn't somewhat decent [and the ones I didn't love in this surprised me in all honesty]. I am really glad that I waited for the audiobook [even though it was ages] as the different narrators really added to the different stories. I am glad I was able to read this.

Thank you to NetGalley, Margaret Atwood, and Doubleday Books for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing an advance copy of this title in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley for the free ebook advanced copy. Margaret Atwood is one of my favorite authors, although thus far I’ve mostly read her novels, not her poetry or essays or short stories.

This collection of short stories circles around the passage of time, memories of loved ones, and pondering what matters and what doesn’t and what makes up a life. But it’s not all serious. There’s an interview with a dead author and a story time by an alien.

Atwood has a way of writing believable intriguing characters with only a little bit about them, but they’re still fully formed. They have depth. There were several stories in this collection about a couple named Nell and Tig, and you learn both intimate details about them, and not really much at all, but you feel like you know them well. Writing that way is not an easy thing to do.

I read a few of these each day, and I never knew quite what to expect but I enjoyed the bits and pieces and it made me think.

I absolutely love Margaret Atwood's new book of short stories, Old Babes in the Wood. Poignant, gentle, and infused with the keen insight we have come to expect from this exceptional writer. Many of the stories feel like memories, not fiction.

I am forever in awe of Atwood’s writing. Having only read her novels, I’ll admit I was uncertain of how her craft would translate to short-form—but I’ve been pleasantly surprised!

Old Babes in the Wood is a marvellous collection of short stories filled to the brim with wonderfully strange characters, relationships, and fantasies.

Each story is brilliant, charming, and captivating—I was pleased from cover to cover.

All short story collections have a built-in problem: there’s no way every one of the stories is going to be loved by everybody. For each reader some stories are the greatest and others are just okay. You usually don’t run into any you hate if it’s an author you like, but once in a while you can. This collection isn’t an exception, especially since I am likely not the target reader. It seems the stories are largely about older women looking back on the past, so I think older women will connect with them better than me. But some of the stories still resonated with me and I loved them! “Impatient Griselda” and “Metampsychosis” are the two that stood out for their imagination and humor. I loved those two stories! What you will find consistent here is a skill and style in the writing that is top notch. I didn’t come across any stories that aren’t enjoyable. Overall I would call this an excellent book and recommend it to everyone who has tried or wants to try Atwood’s fiction. Short stories are the easiest initiation into an author’s work.

Compelling work, but I struggled with connecting to it. Uncertain if this was a subjective experience, or something that could have been addressed somehow. Hopeful that it will spark on a reread in the future. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity with this title.

Atwood doesn't disappoint, although this is a somewhat odd collection. Particularly strong are the second set of stories about a married couple, Tig and Nell.

This is a nice short story collection. It is broken into three parts and the stories in each part build upon/or are continuation of the previous story.

I liked the stories dedicated to Nell and Tig as they essentially just go through life. Part II was more dark satirical story, which weren't as much my style.

Even though I liked the collection, I woul have liked Part III switched in order with Part II. Margaret has a wonderful writing style as usual.

Thank you to Doubleday Books and Netgalley for providing me a copy of this ARC for my honest review.

Margaret Atwood is an author who has always seemed capable of writing stories that impact me deeply at the moment I read them. The Handmaid's Tale was formative when I read it in high school. The MaddAddam trilogy came to me as I was transitioning away from a high-control religion. The Blind Assassin saw me through some days of personal shadows. I have not read her entire catalog, by far, but I will always pick up a new (or new-to-me) title of hers when I encounter it.

This is her first collection of short stories I've read, and the title starts by giving you a very good idea of what to expect: old babes in the woods, that is, women of a certain age trying to navigate the often shadowy and confusing forests of new trials that life throws at them in their latter days. As such, it is the first of Atwood's works that hasn't seemed to be speaking directly to me in the place where I am. That isn't to say it holds no wisdom for a younger(ish) reader, simply that it occasionally left me feeling as if I weren't ready for it yet. Perhaps I should come back to it in another thirty years and see if it speaks to me on new levels.

The collection contains three sets of stories. The middle set was simply stories, disconnected and often very strange (more on these below), bookended by sets of stories featuring the recurring characters of Tig and Nell. In the first three stories, Tig and Nell are older but still whole and hale. In the last set of stories, Tig has died and Nell attempts to navigate life without him, while also facing (or sometimes refusing to face) her own impending mortality. These stories are beautifully crafted, but simply held less interest for me.

The middle set of stories was where I had the most fun.

"my evil mother" was my favorite of the lot, and the exception to the claim that these stories didn't seem to speak right to me. In it, we have a woman reflecting on her childhood as the daughter of a self-proclaimed witch (who is in the habit of having nightly air battles with her eternally reincarnated nemesis, currently in the form of the high school gym teacher), while the mother herself diminishes and approaches the end of her life. I'm going through something similar with my grandmother, who loved her children and grandchildren with her own set of rough peculiarities, and now, at the end, is boiling down to her most concentrated essence. How much of the way she treated us was truly for our own good? How much of it was love, and how much insanity? Can those two things be the same?

I also really enjoyed the other deeply strange stories of the middle set. In "metempsychosis," we travel with a snail who is reincarnated into the body of an already-mature woman and struggles to come to terms with its new, horrible self. "impatient griselda" is the story of an extraterrestrial is tasked with telling a calming story to a group of quarantined humans and makes a fabulous cross-cultural mess of something like a fairy tale. In "freeforall," we see some of the dystopia that Atwood excels at, but told from the somehow-still-sympathetic perspective of the people who create the bizarre new reality rather than from those trying to escape it.

As always, Atwood's prose remains rapier-sharp. Her phrases often make me nod in admiration, and occasionally provoke a kind of gasp of awe. I think it's time to find some of the titles I've missed in her back-catalog and give them a read.

Gems. Not a clinker in the collection. Included are seven stories featuring a couple as they advance through life, which may or may not be patterned after Margaret Atwood's own life as she recently lost her partner, and these may be a tribute to him.

I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.

I’ve been reading some more short story collections lately. How did I not know Margaret Atwood was a short story writer? Her latest collection is Old Babes in the Wood.

This is a moving collection of short stories focused primarily on themes of aging, memory, and loss. Whether you find the protagonists insightful, a little crotchety, or a bit of both will depend upon your perspective, but the truths that emerge in the course of the tales will make you stop and think.

The stories are varied, but Atwood returns to a focus on Nell and Tig, an older couple, happily married for many years who have had good, full lives by most standards, and are now faced with the inevitable. It’s heart-wrenching without being melodramatic.

This is a beautiful collection – as would be expected from this author.

I am a HUGE fan of Atwood, and everything she has written and stands for in the name of feminism and seeing the world in ways that so many of us cant'. But I was not a fan of this short story collection.

I think it was wonderfully written, and I absolutely understand why many people will read it and love it. I just didn't connect to it in the ways I like to connect to books. So, still 4 stars, but truly just not for me.

Old Babes In The Woods was the first book I’ve actually ever read by Margaret Atwood. I am familiar with the author and have watched the Hulu adaption of The Handmaid’s Tale but have just somehow never read the book. Old Babes In The Woods was a good way to put my toes in the water with Atwood’s writing! She has a very unique style and I really enjoyed it! This is a collection of short stories, so there were some I loved more than others, but overall I think this was a really fantastic read and I can’t wait to go back and read some of the author’s previous work!

Grasping the Endgame

Margaret Atwood, author of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” lost her husband Graeme Gibson in 2019 and the experience channels some powerful currents in her new collection, “Old Babes in the Woods.” We are introduced to an older couple, Tig and Nell, in the opening of the book. The second section consists of eight independent short stories. The final area brings us back to Tig and Nell– but now Nell is left to absorb her husband’s death– how to wrap up his life and their relationship.

Tig and Nell fit one another. Three stories show them in their twilight, making each other giggle during first aid courses, tapping into that intimate humor that a close couple share exclusively. There are jokes about no one getting out of life alive and Nell reflects later that their naivety, their obliviousness to an expiration, had served them well.

The middle of the book jumps around to various tales published over the years. “My Evil Mother” is a humorous tale… mom is a witch. There is an imaginary interview the author conducts with the long dead George Orwell, comparing his pessimistic predictions with the predicament we are in now. Other stories cover alien babysitters, a future world with pre-arranged marriages set up to insure population growth (a takeoff on Handmaid's themes), a snail in uncomfortable attire, and a few assorted studies in aging.

The final section, “Nell and Tig,” finds Tig adrift, left to deal with the absence of her late husband. This was the knock-out punch in the book, bursting with the power of Ms. Atwood’s real-life grief. Nell sifts through the remnants of her companion’s life, trying to make sense of events, trying to understand “...these cryptic messages from the dead…” She is puzzled and asks Tig why he left her one particular wooden box of mementos, pondering what it was he was trying to tell her?

You do not get to practice being old. This book struck a chord with me as I have recently walked the same path as Nell and found the essence to be true. The seven Tig / Nell stories are brilliant. The collection of others is very good, as well, if a little scattered. This is a highly entertaining and thought-provoking set.

Thank you to Doubleday Books and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #OldBabesInTheWood #NetGalley.

Review will be published online soon. I enjoyed this collection of stories, particularly the first and third sections with Nell and Tig, which seem quite autobiographical and are about the quiet moments that come with aging and grief. Lovely stories.

I was hoping to enjoy this more, overall. The book is split into 3 sections, the first and third are stories or vignettes involving a couple named Tig & Nell. I really loved the 2nd section, My Evil Mother, which didn't seem to have any connection to Tig & Nell. There is a theme of grief throughout, and the writing is what I expect from the author. I just didn't feel very connected to Tig & Nell, which was a bulk of the book.

OLD BABES IN THE WOOD by Margaret Atwood ~published March 7, 2023

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Pick up this collection for the fantastic My Evil Mother, and stay for Atwood’s wit, humor and wisdom.

Heartfelt thanks to @doubledaybooks and @netgalley for the gifted advance review copy. All thoughts are my own.

Margaret Atwood, award-winning author of The Handmaid’s Tale and a plethora of other novels and short story collections, managed to take me by total surprise with her latest collection.

Based on my knowledge of her work (limited, to be sure) and the ominous-looking cat on the cover, I was expecting creepy-dystopian. This collection is neither! Ok, there is one rather nightmarish tale (Freeforall), but the majority of these fifteen short stories are either wistful and contemplative or playful and even downright funny!

The standout for me was My Evil Mother, narrated by a daughter whose mother believes she is a witch. This one really pulled at my heartstrings while simultaneously making me laugh – so good I read it twice.

I also really enjoyed:

Impatient Griselda – an alien tells a group of quarantined earthlings a fairytale, but doesn’t get it quite right.

Metempsychosis - a snail is reincarnated into a female bank teller’s body with all of its snail proclivities still intact. Or, is it that a woman in crisis comes to believe she is a snail?

Old Babes in the Wood – this is the final story in a group of connected stories about a couple, Nell and Tig, and how to cope with the loss of a loved one.

Atwood explores aging and loss, but as a group, this is all sorts of randomness – and I say that in the most respectful way possible. Collections don’t always need to be cohesive to be enjoyable. Fans of Atwood will find nuggets to love here. She’s just such an expert at her craft at this point.