In this wide-ranging history of debt Margaret Atwood investigates its many meanings through the ages, from ancient times to the current global financial meltdown. Many of us wonder: how could we have let such a collapse happen? How old or inevitable is this human pattern of debt?

Imaginative, topical and insightful, Payback urges us to reconsider our ideas of ownership and debt - before it is too late.

• The Last Word: Tales from the Tip of the Mother Tongue
• The Lay of the Land
• Women With Men
• A Multitude of Sins
• Wildlife