Book Alert / The Tent

The Tent by Margaret Atwood, Talese/Doubleday, $18, 155 pages, ISBN #0-385-51668-1.

In what may be considered a palate cleanser between novels, Canadian prize-winning writer Margaret Atwood has gathered a series of essays, most of which have appeared elsewhere and which range from a paragraph to several pages, into the kind of slim volume one keeps on the bedside table for a bit of pre-dreamland stimulation.

She writes about "the disconcerting experience of looking at old photos of ourselves; gives us Horatio's real views on Hamlet; and examines the boons and banes of orphanhood." One particularly thought-provoking essay, entitled Post-Colonial, speaks to how colonization affects native inhabitants: "As for them, our capital cities have names made from their names, and so do our brands of beer, and some but not all of the items we fob off on tourists. We make free with the word authentic. We are enamoured of hyphens as well: our word, their word, joined at the hip."