With The Handmaid’s Tale finished after six seasons and Hulu’s sequel series The Testaments now here, the whole Gilead story is on screen. It comes from two Margaret Atwood novels written decades apart: The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) and its sequel The Testaments (2019). Both were featured in our roundup of 11 TV Shows Based on Books. Here are both in reading order, with where each one sits in the shows and how to read or listen.
The Gilead Novels
Two books, meant to be read in order, and both strong on their own on audio.
The Handmaid's Tale
Offred is a Handmaid in Gilead, a near-future theocracy that has stripped women of nearly every right and assigned her to bear children for a powerful household. She narrates her days under the regime and holds onto memories of the life and family taken from her. The Hulu series started here and then ran well past the book across six seasons, ending in 2025. On audio it is read by Claire Danes with a full cast and an afterword by Atwood.
The Testaments
Set more than fifteen years later, the sequel tells the slow unraveling of Gilead through three narrators, one of them Aunt Lydia. It is the basis for Hulu’s The Testaments, which premiered in April 2026 as its own series with Ann Dowd back as Aunt Lydia. The audiobook has a full cast including Ann Dowd, Bryce Dallas Howard, Mae Whitman, and Derek Jacobi.
New to Audible? The Prime Day trial is the cheap way to start both on audio. Prime members new to Audible get three months free, with a new audiobook each month; without Prime it is usually three months at $0.99 each.
Want more like this? See the rest of our 11 TV Shows Based on Books you can read or listen to.
