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A Memoir of Sorts
by Margaret Atwood
Book Reviewed by:How does one of the greatest storytellers of our time write her own life? The long-awaited memoir from one of our most lauded and influential cultural figures.
'Every writer is at least two beings: the one who lives, and the one who writes. Though everything written must have passed through their minds, or mind, they are not the same.'
Raised by ruggedly independent, scientifically minded parents – entomologist father, dietician mother – Atwood spent most of each year in the wild forest of northern Quebec. This childhood was unfettered and nomadic, sometimes isolated (on her eighth birthday: 'It sounds forlorn. It was forlorn. It gets more forlorn.'), but also thrilling and beautiful.
From this unconventional start, Atwood unfolds the story of her life, linking seminal moments to the books that have shaped our literary landscape, from the cruel year that spawned Cat's Eye to the Orwellian 1980s Berlin where she wrote The Handmaid's Tale. In pages bursting with bohemian gatherings, her magical life with the wildly charismatic writer Graeme Gibson and major political turning points, we meet poets, bears, Hollywood actors and larger-than-life characters straight from the pages of an Atwood novel.
As we travel with her along the course of her life, more and more is revealed about her writing, the connections between real life and art – and the workings of one of our greatest imaginations.
CHAPTER 1
FAREWELL TO NOVA SCOTIA
A THING MY MOTHER SAID:
MY MOTHER: Because our father's name was Dr. Killam, kids at school used to tease us. They'd say, "Killam, Skin'em, and Eat'em."
ME: Did they hurt your feelings?
MY MOTHER: Pooh. I wouldn't give them the satisfaction.
A THING MY FATHER SAID:
"How long would it take two fruit flies, reproducing unchecked, to cover the entire Earth to a depth of two miles?"
(I don't remember the answer to this, but it was a remarkably short time.)
Both my parents were from Nova Scotia. My father was born in 1906, my mother in 1909. Counting forward, you can see they would have been entering the job market just as the Great Depression of the 1930s was at its height. Coupled with that was the general decline of the Canadian Maritimes: Halifax had been a prosperous seaport in the nineteenth century, but then came the building of the railroads and the shift of the financial gravitational centre, first to Montreal, then Toronto. The city had a brief uptick ...
Book of Lives, by Margaret Atwood
I listened to it, which I think added to the pleasure (after I adjusted to her rather monotonic voice). Interesting woman, interesting life. And her dry wit was a lovely surprise.
-Judith_G
What’s the best nonfiction book you read in 2025?
...here were several that stood out for me that I'd actually call favorites: https://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/5134/book-of-lives Book of Lives by Margaret Atwood; https://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/4964/raising-hare Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton; and https://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/inde...
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (1/1/2026)
I finished Lonesome Dove (had to take a break from it to read bookclub book) and want to say it is as wonderful a novel as everyone says it is. Nearly 1,000 pages long—and I would have happily read much, much more. I can't stop thinking about those characters. I'm also listening to Margaret Atwoo...
-Judith_G
Am I the only person who does this?
Haha, well, since you asked, @Jill_Mercier , I have time for two from the following list: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood A Drop of Corruption (second book in a sci-fi series by Robert Jackson Bennett I li...
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (12/18/2025)
I finished Margaret Atwood's memoir, Book of Lives. It dragged a bit in the middle, but overall it was one of the best memoirs I've read. Parts were VERY funny. She's witty and intelligent - and opinionated - so I enjoyed the majority of the narrative. Definitely worth the price of admission. I s...
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (12/11/2025)
I'm about halfway through https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm/ezine_preview_number/22062/book-of-lives Book of Lives , by Margaret Atwood, and thoroughly enjoying it. I'm not really much of a memoir reader, but this author has long fascinated me, and every time I've heard her sp...
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (12/04/2025)
...finding it absolutely delightful. I'll probably start https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm/ezine_preview_number/22062/book-of-lives Book of Lives by Margaret Atwood after that. She's such a wise, irreverent, and entertaining lecturer I imagine her memoir is going to be pretty good. I finally finished https://www....
-kim.kovacs
Which famous figure should write an autobiography or memoir (who hasn’t already published one)?
My "go to" for this question was going to be Margaret Atwood, but her memoir, https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm/ezine_preview_number/22062/book-of-lives Book of Lives , just published last week, darn it! (High on my TBR list for sure!). I'm going to go with https://www.bookbro...
-kim.kovacs
When publishing industry contacts first approached Margaret Atwood about writing her memoir, she demurred. As time passed, though, "the idea of a memoir acquired a lurid phosphorescent glow," she states. The result is Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts, published just weeks before the author's 86th birthday…and it's far more entertaining than her younger self imagined. Book of Lives is an outstanding memoir—the story of a long life, well-lived—and I highly recommend it to Atwood's fans as well as those who appreciate the memoir genre...continued
Full Review
(974 words)
(Reviewed by Kim Kovacs).
Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) is probably best known for her novels, such as 1985's The Handmaid's Tale and its Booker Prize–winning sequel, The Testaments (2019). Her first published works, however, were volumes of poetry—five collections before her first novel, The Edible Woman, hit the shelves in 1969.
Atwood spent much of her childhood living in the Canadian wilderness—what we'd now call "off-grid." Her father, an entomologist, was employed doing fieldwork, and his family moved with him to remote locations each summer, sometimes living in tents, sometimes in rustic cabins without electricity or running water. Left largely to her own devices, Atwood developed a close connection with nature and came ...
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