India, Nov. 16 -- Dear Reader,

Margaret Atwood and I are spending a lot of time together. Every morning we set off through a street full of tourist shops, bursting with bric-a-brac like Kullu shawls and Turkish charm bracelets.

Atwood talks to me. Her voice has a low, raspy, textured quality; a gravelly tone gives it a sense of weathered wisdom and authenticity.

She plays with words. "In what style should I tell you my story?" she asks. "Eighteenth-century couplet, or like Edgar Allen Poe?"

I laugh out loud at her rendition of Poe. I can hear the raised eyebrow in her tone, the slight smile at the corner of her mouth as she delivers a dramatic line or an ironic observation.

I listen to Margaret tell her story in the audiobook version...