Book of Lives

Notes From Your Bookseller

An icon of literary achievement and author of eerily prophetic writing finally tells us about herself. It’s pretty much a superhero origin story, told in vibrant detail, making it a shining feat of storytelling on its own merit.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD • NAMED A NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES AND THE WASHINGTON POST • How does the greatest writer of our time tell her own story?

Raised by scientifically minded parents, Margaret Atwood spent most of each year in the wild forest of northern Quebec: a vast playground for her entomologist father and independent, resourceful mother. It was an unfettered and nomadic childhood, sometimes isolated but also thrilling and beautiful.

From this unconventional start, Atwood unfolds the story of her life, linking key moments to the books that have shaped our literary landscape, from the cruel school year that would become Cat’s Eye to the unease of 1980s Berlin, where she began The Handmaid’s Tale. In pages alive with the natural world, reading and books, major political turning points, and her lifelong love for the charismatic writer Graeme Gibson, we meet poets, bears, Hollywood stars, and larger-than-life characters straight from the pages of an Atwood novel.

As she explores her past, Atwood reveals more and more about her writing, the connections between real life and art—and the workings of one of our very greatest imaginations.