Book of Lives

Margaret Atwood has lived a huge life, full of nature, travel, love, challenge, birds and writing. Much of her fiction and poetry has been semi-autobiographical, but it is a privilege to be given such an intimate and direct insight into her life in the form of this memoir. Book of Lives is exactly that: the telling of her life, beginning before her birth and taking us through its many chapters. I have wanted to know this kind of detail since I first ‘discovered’ Atwood and this memoir has met the brief. My curiosity has been rewarded with these 620 pages, opening a door to see into the life that shaped this exceptional writer.

Atwood began writing at a time when Canadian writers and publishing were under-acknowledged and under-supported and where opportunities were scarce. Thankfully, she and others saw this as an opportunity to fill the space. Book of Lives not only tells the story of Atwood’s personal life, but also of her life as a writer at such a pivotal time.

At first resistant to writing a memoir, the suggestion lingered in the background for a long time. As time passed and Atwood grew older, she saw the opportunity to reflect on and examine the many images of herself that have been presented to the world. There is a freedom that comes from writing a memoir after 85 years of life. Atwood has had so many experiences in her lifetime, obviously not all good, but she is both honest and respectful in recounting these.

As a reader and a bookseller, it is a great joy to know that others will also be welcomed into her life. This was always going to be a somewhat biased review, given my admiration for the author, but I genuinely feel that even casual readers of Atwood, or appreciators of a well-written, entertaining and witty memoir, will find this hard to put down.