Non-Fiction Pick of the Week: Payback

Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth by Margaret Atwood 2008

If bookmarks, leaves, stems of leaves, and bits of paper all mark pages that
a reader wants to return to when he/she is finished, then it must be a good book. If a book almost doubles its size with these markers, it surely must be a book to recommend. Since that was the case, I recommend Margaret Atwood’s
Payback: Debt and the shadow side of wealth Atwood’s timely topic of debt is all the more relevant with Wall Street’s demise,economic scandals and historic moves by the United States and countries of the world to avert a global Armageddon. Atwood says the balance of good and evil, debts and debtors, vengeance and forgiveness have more to do with our humanness than money. An example she uses throughout the chapters is that of the monkey studies which illustrate that when a pebble is used as a reward rather than a grape, monkey behaviour changes. They understand “it’s not fair”. From a child’s firm declaration to the Bible’s book of Deuteronomy, opera, poetry, literature of all kinds and a Jewish seder, Atwood demonstrates how debt and balance mean more than money. In the last chapter, Atwood quotes Charles Darwin when he said, “Wealth comes from nature. Without it, there wouldn’t be any economics”. Does that mean we are truly indebted to nature? How do we pay back our debt to bees?