Reader’s Digest Canada – September 2019

(AT

WO

OD

)©

LI

AM

SH

AR

P

THE WATER DANCER

In this searing novel, one of the sharpest minds

in non-fiction turns his talents to the imaginary.

Set in the mid-1800s, Ta-Nehisi Coates’s tale follows

Hiram Walker, an enslaved boy whose mother has been

sold but who seems to be protected by some uncanny

power. An accident on a river road compels him to

make a break for freedom, taking Hiram from his Virginia

plantation through the streets of Philadelphia and up

to a campsite tantalizingly close to Canada. Sept. 24.

THE TESTAMENTS

Following Trump’s inauguration, at

women’s marches around the world,

people in pink hats held up signs beseech-

ing, “Make Margaret Atwood Fiction Again.”

But as the Toronto author has pointed out,

the details she included in her famous 1985

dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale came

from real events in history. And there’s been

plenty more to mine for inspiration in the

three-and-a-half decades since she wrote her

opus. Expect shudders of recognition when read-

ing The Testaments, her long-awaited sequel, nar-

rated by three female characters and set 15 years after

Offred was bundled off to an unknown destination. Sept. 10.

BY Danielle Groen

reader’s digest

14 september 2019

That’s

ENTERTAINMENT!