If you had casual plans to check out a copy of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale from your local library, we have some bad news: The waitlists are almost as daunting as the author’s dystopian vision for the future.
Hundreds of Handmaid’s Tale fans in New York City are waiting to get their hands on Atwood’s novel, soon to hit Hulu as an adapted TV series starring Elizabeth Moss, Samira Wiley, Joseph Fiennes and Alexis Bledel, according to a recent report from Patch verified by The Huffington Post.
In February, readers placed 183 holds on 64 copies of the book at the New York Public Library alone. By March, the NYPL added 32 more copies of the book into circulation, and the number of holds jumped to 534.
“As of today, there are currently 546 holds on 96 copies of The Handmaid’s Tale,” a NYPL representative told HuffPost on Monday. “For background, according to our online catalog, there aren’t other dystopian titles with the same level of checkouts or holds.”
Demand for the book shouldn’t take anyone by surprise. Atwood’s 1985 novel is set in a near-future, totalitarian U.S. civilization called the Republic of Gilead, which is built on Christian fundamentalist values and fixated on the declining birthrate of its population. The story is told from the perspective of Offred, a “Handmaid” suddenly forced to abandon her relatively free life in order to have sex with, and produce children for, a high-ranking man whose wife is infertile. Offred is one of a number of Handmaids subjected to the reproductive rights nightmare that unfurls.
A description of The Handmaid’s Tale on the Houston Public Library’s website characterizes it as “a novel of such power that the reader will be unable to forget its images and its forecast.” It continues:
In condensed but eloquent prose, by turns cool-eyed, tender, despairing, passionate, and wry, she reveals to us the dark corners behind the establishment’s calm facade, as certain tendencies now in existence are carried to their logical conclusions.
bronzekite on April 11st, 2017 at 14:27 UTC »
Doesn't this happen every time a book is made into a movie/tv show?
Thrawn4191 on April 11st, 2017 at 14:26 UTC »
I feel this would also be a good time to plug local used book stores. If the library doesn't have it check them out. Many times a paperback copy can be had for $0.50-2.00 pretty easily.
lost_in_life_34 on April 11st, 2017 at 12:19 UTC »
Kindle version was like $2 not too long ago