With Canada Reads just around the corner, it’s the perfect time to take a look at some of actor Amanda Brugel‘s book picks.
Brugel won Canada Reads in 2020 championing the memoir We Have Always Been Here by Samra Habib.
She credits her deep love of The Handmaid’s Tale — which started long before she played Rita in the TV adaptation — as something of a starting point for her career.
Brugel said that when she applied to Toronto’s York University, she wasn’t yet sure if she wanted to be an actor or a writer.
“To apply for the writing program, you had to write a thesis summarizing your favourite book,” she said. “So I chose The Handmaid’s Tale and I chose to write it on my favourite character, Rita.”
When she submitted the essay and was awarded a full scholarship, she turned it down “because I thought writing would be too difficult and I would never be able to rise to Margaret Atwood’s talent.”
“This was in 1996 and the character has been with me ever since,” she told Antonio Michael Downing on The Next Chapter, where she shared some of the most formative books of her life.
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood published The Handmaid’s Tale in 1985. (Aaron Vincent Elkaim/Canadian Press/Emblem Editions)
Brugel’s first book pick was obvious, The Handmaid’s Tale, which she was first introduced to in a high school Canadian literature class.
“We had to respond to it by writing a series of short stories, so I wrote a series of short stories based on my reaction to the book and, just that alone, I received a small bursary to put towards applying for universities.”
The Handmaid’s Tale was a Canada Reads finalist in 2002. The dystopian novel tells the story of a woman named Offred who lives in fictional Gilead, a totalitarian part of the United States that enslaves the vast majority of women and uses them for forced reproduction.
Atwood, one of Canada’s best known and most prolific writers, has written more than 40 books encompassing nearly all literary forms. Her novel The Testaments broke Canadian sales records and was named the co-winner of the 2019 Booker Prize.
The Next Chapter with Antonio Michael Downing26:59How Amanda Brugel manifested her role in The Handmaid’s Tale
Caste by Isabelle Wilkerson
Caste: The Origins of our Discontents is a book by Isabel Wilkerson. (Random House Publishing Group, Isabel Wilkerson)
Brugel’s second pick was Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson.
“The book is a deep dive into caste systems on a global scale and how we think of the caste system predominantly in India,” Brugel said. “We don’t really think of the caste system in Nazi Germany; we don’t really think of a caste system in North American slavery…”
But she says all are systems that divide humans into categories and assign a hierarchy.
While people today are not be responsible for creating these systems of power, the book delves into the responsibility they may hold for maintaining them, says Brugel, and that resonated with her.
“She gives instructions on how to dismantle the system, on how to even just identify it so we can know that it exists…,” she said. “It’s so much a part of our day-to-day that we’re almost blind to it.”
It’s so much a part of our day-to-day that we’re almost blind to it.- Amanda Brugel
Caste uses historical and contemporary examples, including the author’s own experiences, to demonstrate how these systems of power have both historically and contemporarily shaped our world.
Wilkerson is an American journalist. Her first book, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, won several awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in journalism.
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet is a book by William Shakespeare. (Pan Macmillan, AP Press)
The third title Brugal chose was Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.
“I am inherently a diehard romantic,” she said. While she says it may seem silly, the fantasy of falling in love at first sight, and of that love being too strong to live without, really drew her in.
While it’s not necessarily Shakespeare’s best work, Brugel says the play is her favourite because it was her introduction to the celebrated English playwright.
“It was the first time that I heard words as lyrics. There is a melody to Shakespeare, but particularly in Romeo and Juliet. It’s so lyrical and it’s so beautiful. It almost sounded like you were reading music notes.”
It’s so lyrical and it’s so beautiful. It almost sounded like you were reading music notes.- Amanda Brugel
Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare’s tragedies, the story of two young people from feuding families who fall deeply in love, causing a series of events that lead to a tragic conclusion.
21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari
21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a book by Yuval Noah Harari. (Ilya Malnikov, Penguin Random House)
Fourth on Brugel’s list was 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari.
“It’s broken down into lessons that we can take forward and try to apply them on how to navigate the 21st century,” she said. “The overarching thing for me was that human beings have told ourselves these narratives that we’re sort of on this runaway train and we can’t stop it, but they’re just stories that we’ve told ourselves.”
Brugel says the author works hard to dismantle mistruths people tend to hang onto about politics, education and the environment.
21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a book that breaks down the deeper meanings behind the major events of our time, and how individuals can make sense of today’s world.
Harari is also the author of Sapiens and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Oxford, and his books have been translated into 65 languages.
A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
A New Earth: Awakening to your Life’s Purpose is a book by Eckhart Tolle. (Penguin Life, eckharttolle.com)
Brugel’s last pick was the self-help book A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, which she says she found notable for the way it breaks down the role that ego plays in our lives.
She says the book taught her to check in with herself in a meaningful way, especially given that, as an artist, she can feel defined by what other people think of her.
“It allows me to go back to his teachings all of the time, to separate myself from my egoic responses first and become a little more aware of myself.”
A New Earth argues that people must break out of an “ego-based state of consciousness” to achieve happiness, according to Tolle’s website.
Tolle is the bestselling author of The Power of Now and A New Earth. His books have been translated into more than 50 languages. In 2008, Oprah Winfrey endorsed A New Earth as her book club selection, and did so a second time in January 2025.