🎥 Watch it now
Welcome back to Reading Between Deadlines, the podcast where we read with the same chaotic energy we usually reserve for missing deadlines and burning toast. This week kicks off our brand new format—where we invite a guest author to join the madness and unpack a book they adore (but one we haven’t read).
Our first brave volunteer? The internationally bestselling author and all-round delight, Natasha Lester!
Together, we dive into The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood—a Booker Prize-winning epic that's part family saga, part sci-fi story within a story, and part... existential crisis?
In this episode, we cover:
📚 Would The Blind Assassin even get published today at this length, or would an editor bring a chainsaw?
👩❤️💋👨 Iris and Alex: toxic, tragic, or just two messy humans fumbling toward love?
🚗 The ultimate opening line.
📖 The absolute sorcery of Atwood's layered structure (seriously, how did she pull it off?)
👩👧 Mothers, daughters, and all the messy love (and resentment) in between.
🍵 Plus: Natasha's secret weapon for writing books that make people sob.
And, of course, we rate it: Kiss, Kill, or Marry?
⏰ Timestamps
00:30 – This week’s pick: The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
02:00 – Natasha Lester joins us and we try (badly) not to fangirl
05:00 – The ultimate opening line and a quick Margaret Atwood bio roast
10:00 – Kiss, Kill, Marry: Will The Blind Assassin survive the chaos?
15:00 – The slow-burn beginning: brilliant atmosphere or slightly snoozy?
20:00 – The sci-fi sections: genius storytelling or skip fodder?
26:00 – Writing structure envy: how Atwood juggles five timelines like a boss
32:00 – How The Blind Assassin inspired Natasha’s debut novel (and her career)
38:00 – Natasha’s wide reading taste: from Margaret Atwood to Emily Henry (yes, really!)
42:00 – Memoirs, crying in books, and the ethical nightmare of Facebook
50:00 – What Natasha’s reading next—and which books she wishes she’d written
👉 Listen now, subscribe, and tell us—did you swoon for The Blind Assassin?
Recommendations from :
Poetry by Margaret Atwood
Possession by AS Byatt
Book Lovers by Emily Henry
Educated by Tara Westover
The Safe Keep by Yael van der Wouden
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Careless People by Sarah Wynn Williams
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell
Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker
