Greetings from Canada. Looking for a Book Buddy/Buddies to read Atwood's Payback with

Hello Everyone,

I am working on a book and find myself running out of steam.
To this end, I thought that reading some literary works with others would serve me well to help get my literary cogs unstuck.

I enjoy reading many types of literature, but my current project is a book of social commentary and analysis; I thought reading works of this sort would be beneficial.

I very much like Margaret Atwood. She is one of Canada's most illustrious authors and we read her works in high school here in Canada.

I am going to start reading her interesting collection of thoughts and insights into the concept of Debt called Payback : Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth.

Here's a short quote Atwood wrote about her work :

“The subject of Payback is one of the most worrisome and puzzling things I know,” she writes. “[Debt is] that particular nexus where money, narrative or story, and religious belief intersect, often with explosive force.”

Here's an interesting excerpt from the book :

"Could it be that some people get into debt because, like speeding on a motorbike, it adds an adrenaline hit to their otherwise humdrum lives?” Atwood writes. “When the bailiffs are knocking at the door and the lights go off because you didn't pay the hydro and the bank's threatening to foreclose, at least you can't complain of ennui."

Here's another :

“Saint Nicholas,” she writes, “as well as being the patron saint of young children, those sticky-fingered elfin creatures with scant sense of other people’s property rights, is also the patron saint of thieves.”

Here are a few comments the critic I read made on the work :

another side of the author’s self is shown in the constant reference to the work of her mentors, authors such as Charles Dickens and George Eliot. Atwood studies fictional characters plagued by unfulfilled contracts (soul-binding or merely monetary) to examine societal perceptions of debt through the ages.

To round out her narration, the author presents an–at times controversial–study of debt and religion. Atwood even goes as far as likening the Catholic Church’s selling of indulgences to the actions of crime-for-hire enterprises such as Hells Angels and the Mafia. Littered with such bold assumptions and harsh criticisms, these analyses range from Ancient Egypt to modern Christianity and show the numerous figures and ideologies representing redemption, sin, and the frightening costs of unbalanced give-and-take.

And to conclude :

Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth is one big take-home lesson for anyone who believes they – or the society of which they are a part – are teetering on unbalanced scales.

If anyone's interested, here's the url for this critic's review :

http://www.corporateknights.com/web-...html?page=show

The subject of Debt is omnipresent in today's society; heck, it has been for the entirety of human existence, only now the balance sheet of actual, physical resources to fabricated currency valuation has been blown out of all sense of reality.

There's plenty of material out there about current thoughts on the world's debt crisis, but Atwood is an excellent fictional author with a keen eye for historical reference.

I didn't want to read just another economic and societal analysis, I wanted to get some fresh perspective. I hope Atwood's work provides this. I think it will.

So, if anyone else is interested in joining me on this literary journey, please let me know.

Whether a book buddy or a bunch of buddies, I would welcome the additional insights of other minds and perspectives.

Cheers,