This cover image released by Doubleday shows The Bedside Book of Birds: An Avian Miscellany, an illustrated compilation of folktales, poems, fiction and nonfiction by Graeme Gibson. “The Bedside Book of Birds: An Avian Miscellany," an illustrated compilation of folktales, poems, fiction and nonfiction that Gibson had assembled on his own, was originally published in 2005. Nothing could be more magnificent.”“The Bedside Book of Birds” is divided into nine sections — “habitats,” Gibson called them — that center on such themes as birds as omens, as revelations, avengers and mysteries. The Cold War had ended, the Berlin Wall had come down in 1989 and people were saying things like ‘the end of history.’ That was wrong, wrong, wrong,” Atwood said. They're very smart, and they have very long memories.”In his book, Gibson also describes an unexpected bond with a parrot named Harold Wilson.

The Canadian writer and teacher has earned the Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award, officials of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize officials announced Monday. The award is named for the late U.S. diplomat who brokered the 1995 Bosnian peace accords reached in the Ohio city. Some readers of “The Handmaid's Tale” saw in the leaders of authoritarian Gilead similarities to the rise of Republican Donald Trump to president in the election of 2016. Sharon Rab, the founder and chairwoman of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation, praised Atwood for popular success with writing that also educates people about pressing social justice and environmental issues. “The Testaments,” her 2019 sequel to “The Handmaid's Tale,” quickly joined her bestsellers.