Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood

Thank you for joining me this week for Book Beginnings on Fridays where participants share the opening sentence (or two) from the book they are reading. You can also share from a book you want to feature, even if you are not reading it at the moment. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

The house lights dim. The audience quiets.

-- from the Prologue to Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood.

Hag-Seed is a novel by Margaret Atwood that retells (in prose) William Shakespeare's play The Tempest. It is part of of a series of Shakespeare retellings from Hogarth Press. "Hogarth Shakespeare" began in 2015 with Jeanette Winterson’s The Gap of Time (The Winter’s Tale) and now includes Howard Jacobson’s Shylock Is My Name (The Merchant of Venice), Anne Tyler’s Vinegar Girl (The Taming of the Shrew), Tracy Chevalier's New Boy (Othello), Edward St. Aubyn's Dunbar (King Lear), and Jo Nesbo's Macbeth (Macbeth, duh).

I read Shylock is My Name and loved it. It's one of my favorite books and one I am looking forward to rereading. I also liked Vinegar Girl a lot. I picked Hag-Seed for my book club's next read. We'll see what the other ladies think. I'd like to read all of the books in this series.  

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING

Please add the link to your book beginning post in the linky box below. If you participate or share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings so other people can find your post.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 asks participants to share a two-sentence teaser from their book of the week. If your book is an ebook or audiobook, pick a teaser from the 56% point. 

Anna at My Head is Full of Books hosts The Friday 56, a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please visit My Head is Full of Books to leave the link to your post. 

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Hag-Seed:

Leaving the Festival parking lot, Felix didn’t have the sensation of driving. Instead he felt he was being driven, as if blown by a high wind.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Felix is at the top of his game as artistic director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival. Now he’s staging a Tempest like no other: not only will it boost his reputation, but it will also heal emotional wounds. Or that was the plan. Instead, after an act of unforeseen treachery, Felix is living in exile in a backwoods hovel, haunted by memories of his beloved lost daughter, Miranda. And also brewing revenge, which, after twelve years, arrives in the shape of a theatre course at a nearby prison.

Margaret Atwood’s novel take on Shakespeare’s play of enchantment, retribution, and second chances leads us on an interactive, illusion-ridden journey filled with new surprises and wonders of its own.