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    Stone Mattress: Thirteen Tales
    Unavailable
    Stone Mattress: Thirteen Tales
    Unavailable
    Stone Mattress: Thirteen Tales
    Audiobook10 hours

    Stone Mattress: Thirteen Tales

    Published by Penguin Random House Audio

    Narrated by Lorna Raver Raver, Mark Bramhall, Arthur Morey and

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A collection of highly imaginative short pieces that speak to our times with deadly accuracy. Vintage Atwood creativity, intelligence, and humor: think Alias Grace.

    Margaret Atwood turns to short fiction for the first time since her 2006 collection, Moral Disorder, with nine tales of acute psychological insight and turbulent relationships bringing to mind her award-winning 1996 novel, Alias Grace. A recently widowed fantasy writer is guided through a stormy winter evening by the voice of her late husband in "Alphinland," the first of three loosely linked stories about the romantic geometries of a group of writers and artists. In "The Freeze-Dried Bridegroom," a man who bids on an auctioned storage space has a surprise. In "Lusus Naturae," a woman born with a genetic abnormality is mistaken for a vampire. In "Torching the Dusties," an elderly lady with Charles Bonnet syndrome comes to terms with the little people she keeps seeing, while a newly formed populist group gathers to burn down her retirement residence. And in "Stone Mattress," a long-ago crime is avenged in the Arctic via a 1.9 billion-year-old stromatolite. In these nine tales, Margaret Atwood is at the top of her darkly humorous and seriously playful game.

    List of Stories and Narrators:

    • "Alphinland" and  "Torching the Dusties" read by Lorna Raver
    • "Revenant" read by Mark Bramhall
    • "Dark Lady" and  "The Dead Hand Loves You" read by Arthur Morey
    • "Lusus Naturae" read by Emily Rankin
    • "The Freeze-Dried Groom" read by Rob Delaney
    • "I Dream of Zenia with the Bright Red Teeth" read by Bernadette Dunne
    • "Stone Mattress" read by Margaret Atwood
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateSep 16, 2014
    ISBN9780553546040
    Unavailable
    Stone Mattress: Thirteen Tales

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    Reviews for Stone Mattress

    4/5

    398 ratings52 reviews

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    • 5/5
      What a writer she is.

      Finished the book yesterday and really enjoyed it.

      Alphinland,Revenant and Dark Lady our first 3 stories are entwined with each other so make for a little "trilogy"The author has a way with her writing that she slowly lures you in and when there you can't escape.
      I liked the first 2 stories more than Dark Lady.
      The people in the book are definitely not the nicest. But how human they are!!

      Lusus Naturae was short but sweet.

      Had a great quote:

      "There's only so long you can feel sorry for a person before you come to feel that their affliction is an act of malice committed by them against you"

      The Freeze Dried Groom was one of my favourites.

      I dream of Zenia was a short little story but still good.

      The Dead Hand loves you competes with The Dead Groom fighting which one of the 2 is loved best by me. Winner not yet decided.

      Stone Mattress was one the less favourite ones in my opinion but still good.

      Torching the Dusties I loved!

      What I liked was that most stories were told by older people and now that I am slowly becoming one of them and cannot help but notice how ageism exist ( I was part of it) to read her stories was feeling like I had sweet strawberries. Sweet! definitely not the sour ones I ate last night
      with freshly whipped cream.

      4.5 stars
    • 3/5
      There is one very good story (Stone Mattress), some not bad ones, and some forgettable ones. I appreciate reading stories of elderly people because it's not something I often read. Some of the feminist ideas in these stories are evergreen (why the story Stone Mattress succeeds), but others are a little stale or outdated.
    • 4/5
      Well written but not quite on a par with her novels.
    • 3/5
      Not really my cup of tea. A couple of the stories were quite interesting and some a lot less so.
    • 4/5
      I love the language style Margaret Atwood writes in. It reminds me of a modern Virginia Wolfe sometimes.
    • 2/5
      When it comes to Atwood, I'll stick to Handmaid's Tale. I kept hoping that at least one of the stories wouldn't be horrible. As in 'full of horror'. If you like that sort of thing, they are well written.
    • 3/5
      Just don't think I will ever be a fan of Atwood.
    • 3/5
      There were some really twisted stories (classic Atwood), but since the majority of them dealt with persons of advanced years, I didn't really connect with them as much. I loved to see her playing with genre.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this collection. It isn't my favourite of the short story collections I've read by Margaret Atwood. That honour goes to Wilderness Tips.Stone Mattress starts with a suite of three interconnected stories about a writer, a poet and the woman who came between them. None of the characters is particularly likeable, but Atwood's mischievous sense of humour makes reading about them very entertaining. It's a bit of a theme throughout the collection, that unlikeability. Atwood has a spiky tongue when she needs it. She's never mean, though. She's merely observant of human nature and what people are really like under their veneer of civility. And also what their vulnerabilities are beneath their carapace of unlikeability.The theme running through the stories is the difficulty of getting along with other people. More specifically, and as a quote from a review in the Independent newspaper on the cover of the paperback version I read almost says, it's about getting to a certain point in life where there are people in our lives that we'd really rather weren't there, and being prepared to go to the ultimate length for them not to be there any longer. Some of the stories are enigmatic, full of suspense, and you're left not knowing what will happen, but in a wrigglingly delicious way.My favourite story in the book is the shortest. Lusus Naturae is a funny, bittersweet tale. It didn't need to be longer than its 10 pages. Everything was there. The innocent childhood, the difficult teenage years, the misunderstanding, the inevitable end. I want to quote from it, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't read it.It was a nice surprise to re-encounter some old friends from The Robber Bride, in the middle of the collection. I Dream of Zenia with the Bright Red Teeth brings us up to date with Tony, Roz and Charis in one of the milder stories in the book.The title story had an unusual effect - it had me rooting for someone about to commit a murder. The final tale in the collection was sobering. An almost dystopia, it speaks of the fate that a lot of people are already facing, and took it a step further. That's something else Atwood does well. At each stage of her life, she distills the world she is experiencing to produce the essence of the things that matter. This collection of stories has a second theme of aging. It examines how to age with dignity, and whether it is necessary or right to address past events. And linked to aging is memory, how it fades as we grow older, and we begin the refrain, "It'll come back to me later," and then begin to wonder whether it's something more.What I like about Margaret Atwood's short stories is that she understands the format. She knows that it's not for throwaway ideas that might or might not be worked into novels. She understands that the reader still needs to feel drawn in by the story, and satisfied by its ending. Not all writers have the skill to craft a truly good short story, but Margaret Atwood does. Whether it's 50 pages or 10, she gives you everything you need to know to make the story real.
    • 4/5
      Intelligent, engaging and frequently hilarious, a lot like the author.
    • 4/5
      A collection of short stories, several of which are nicely tied together and provide insight form different characters' points of view. What I particularly enjoyed about these pieces were the focus on individuals later in life and some of the reflection backward. It provides a bit of perspective on the choices we make at one phase of life and how things often (unexpectedly) turn out. Strong writing (as usual) from Margaret Atwood makes this a great read.
    • 4/5
      A consistently solid writer, Margaret Atwood gives us 9 compelling tales with a touch of romance and a touch of the macabre.
    • 4/5
      4 stars because the book is pretty slow. The "action" is within all the details. After I realized that I was able to enjoy the book, but for the first couple of chapters I was waiting for the pace to pick up.
    • 3/5
      I'll admit, I'm not much of a short story person. By the time the "tale" envelops me, it's over with, generally, no conclusion. I do find that each of these tales is very crisply written, incredibly original, but quite dark. Several of them will stick with me for all of these reasons. Margaret Atwood's imagination is unparalleled, but I guess I'll stick to her novels.
    • 4/5
      Atwood is a fascinating storyteller and Stone Mattress gets at some of the most volatile emotions in the human relationship: infatuation, betrayal, infidelity, and revenge. A trio of short stories are connected and proficiently unpack a complex set of interpersonal connections in a writing circle. I think my personal favorite may have been "The Dead Hand Loves You."
    • 4/5
      I love the language style Margaret Atwood writes in. It reminds me of a modern Virginia Wolfe sometimes.
    • 2/5
      I got distracted and didn’t finish before the library took the ebook back.
    • 4/5
      I read this book for the "A Short Story" part of my 2018 reading challenge. I really enjoyed it, I liked all of the different characters and the way many of them related.
    • 4/5
      This, again, is unlike anything I've read from Margaret Atwood, yet there are some familiar elements. Not one of her best works for me, but a stellar one nonetheless. I found it surprising and fun that some of the stories were connected while others weren't, a subtle way to break the expectations.
    • 5/5
      Atwood & I are approx. same age. I have been a fan of her poetry, but except for Handmaids Tale, not of her prose. Loved this collection. Until the final story, it was rollicking fun.
    • 4/5
      This was a great short story and pretty twisted. It's one of those stories that you read and can't help loving even though the main focus of the story is completely horrible. Definitely should read this.
    • 3/5
      The short stories didn't really do much to hold my attention. The first three connected, but to me they didn't really seem to have an amazing ending to them.
    • 5/5
      Fantastic as always. Atwood's sense of humor really comes out in this collection. I appreciated the interwoven fabric of several of the short stories (though not all of them are part of the same storyline).
    • 5/5
      This is the 2nd book by Margaret Atwood that I recently have read and I have a 3rd one waiting for me. These short stories are excellent. The themes are varied but they deal a lot with male/female relationships and the issues of aging. This collection is a perfect introduction to Margaret Atwood for those that have not read her. She is simply one the best writers around. I fully intend to read all of her books and really believe that one day she should get a Nobel Prize for her body of work. She is that good.
    • 4/5
      Nine short stories: several feature authors reliving relationships of their youth, some ending with revelations, one with reconciliation, in other tales people meet out vengeance served the best way: cold, a horror tale, plus a few murders, and every tale very entertaining.
    • 5/5
      the first three stories are interconnected and after that they're standalones, but it's a great collection. Some of the stories are arch and cynical and some are just terrifying. One story is a sequel of sorts to one of her novels. One is one of the grimmest dystopias I've read that makes that last chapter of The Bone Clocks seem like fun in the sun. In general though she returns to her roots of writing about womens' lives in ways that are thrilling and awesome. Read it.
    • 5/5
      Ms. Atwood is one of the most creative minds in fiction writing today. This is a collection of wildly different short stories that will make readers take notice and go out and read some of her novels. That is my only regret here. I wished that many of these stories were expanded because I loved the characters and stories so much, Two of note include a woman who is slighted in her youth by a boy named Bob and she takes her revenge on "Bobs" the rest of her life. Another is about the dismembered hand of a man that haunts a woman he was in love with because it is still in love with her. Unique!
    • 4/5
      Margaret Atwood is truly an amazing and brilliant author. Stone Mattress is a collection of nine tales that are dark and insightful and definitely imaginative! Each tale ends abruptly leaving the reader stunned and wanting more! Atwood plays with your mind using her wit to create compelling characters that are involved in strange predicaments. This is probably one of the rare books that I wouldn't mind reading again at a future date.
    • 5/5
      I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review. I needed this book. Every story in Stone Mattress is unique and fascinating, dark and humorous. Aging is a major theme and I enjoyed the perspective. The writing was smooth and the voice was modern with a touch of folklore. I would highly recommend it.
    • 5/5
      I have a confession to make. I haven't been reading as much as I want to - well, I haven't been reading fiction "for fun" as much as I have wanted to. The reason is that now that school is in session and I'm focusing on a specific area of literature and navigating my way through graduate school, I just can't afford to set aside time to read for pleasure. But then, the other night I was thinking about that and I realized that it shouldn't be the case. Just because I'm in school and reading other things doesn't mean I can't pick up a book for fun and so the first one I picked up was STONE MATTRESS by Margaret Atwood.Read the rest of this review at The Lost Entwife on Sept. 10, 2014.