Margaret Atwood, Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts

A revelatory tome. And yet not. Atwood’s 600-pages are both telling and teasing. She curates experiences throughout her extraordinary and rich life with great care, sharing choices she made in the service of her gift as a writer and as a woman but often leaving the reader wanting to know more about her inner self. In spite of this, her humour and openness serve this selective narrative well. The arc of her evolution from a child with freedom to explore her world and time to create to Can Lit and international superstar makes for compelling reading. The memoir concludes with great tenderness towards her late life partner and love, Graeme Gibson, and with her own sign off that feels like a coda. At 86, she can choose to leave these as her last published words. Or not.  9/10