Second paragraph of third story (“Morte de Smudgie”):

When Nell and Tig’s cat Smudgie died, Nell dealt with her disproportionate sense of loss by rewriting Tennyson’s “Morte d’Arthur,” with Smudgie in the leading role, supported by a full cast of noble cats in medieval robes and chain mail. This was a deeply frivolous thing for her to do, and the results were not felicitous:

A paw,
Clothed in white sarmite, mystic, wonderful…

After some thought, I classified this collection of short stories as non-genre rather than sf in my roundup from last month; several of the stories are quite explicitly sf, and a couple more verge on fantasy, but the majority are sent in our world, and seven of the fifteen deal with Nell and her husband Tig, firmly rooted in today’s Canada.

I thought these were all excellent, with particular shout-outs to “The Dead Interview”, in which Atwood imagines herself having a conversation with George Orwell through a medium, “Metempsychosis” in which a snail becomes human, “Death By Clamshell” in which Hypatia of Alexandria tells the story of her own murder, and “A Dusty Lunch” in which Nell finds out about Tig’s father’s war record. But each of them is very much worth reading.

You can get Old Babes in the Wood here.

This was my top unread book by a woman. Next on that pile is The Years, by Annie Ernaux.