Where To Start With Margaret Atwood Books
Canadian icon and author, Margaret Atwood, is best known for her prose, politics, and their convergence within her work. Atwood brings her eye-opening perspective to issues that revolve around power and gender politics in the form of non-fiction, sci-fi, poetry, historical fiction, feminist literature, and more. But don’t feel daunted by these dense topics — Atwood’s accessible writing is not only educational but also deeply captivating. With decades of experience as an award-winning author, Atwood’s contribution to literature in several different genres has made her one of the most creative and influential authors of our time — read these books to understand why.
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Add to BookshelfBurning Questions
by Margaret Atwood
In a collection of over 50 essays and pieces, Atwood answers a slew of the world’s most burning questions with the wisdom she’s gained as a writer and as a person. From questions that surround the writing process of her most notable works — such as The Handmaid’s Tale, its sequel The Testaments, and the MaddAddam trilogy — to covering the pandemic, presidents, and climate change. Understand Atwood’s novels, and the world, better through her eyes — she just might have an answer to a question you’ve been dying to ask.
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The Edible Woman
by Margaret Atwood
In her very first novel, Atwood introduces us to career-focused Marian MacAlpin. Having recently graduated from university, Marian takes a job writing survey questions for a marketing agency, and spends her free time with her dependable boyfriend, Peter. But when Peter proposes, things take a strange turn. At the restaurant, she becomes sympathetic to her steak and realizes she can no longer eat meat. Pretty soon, Marian develops an aversion to everything in her fridge. After slowly losing herself, can Marian work up an appetite to quench her emotional cannibalism?
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Alias Grace
by Margaret Atwood
In the story that won her the Giller Prize in 1996, Atwood utilizes dual timelines to recall the events leading up to, and after a murder. Based on the real murders of Thomas Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery, and the conviction of Grace Marks and James McDermot, Atwood’s Grace Marks is adamant about her innocence — but her amnesia prevents her from ever proving this. After serving sixteen years of her life sentence, Grace is given another chance to recall these deadly events to Dr. Simon Jordan — a psychologist determined to recover her memories. But learning about Grace as the story oscillates between past and present will leave you questioning if she is really as innocent as she insists.
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Hag-Seed
by Margaret Atwood
Atwood gives a modern-day twist to Shakespeare’s The Tempest in a story about a scorned theater director and his final curtain call. Felix Phillips is the director of the Makeshiweg Theater Festival until he is blindsided by his dismissal — orchestrated by his assistant Tony. After the loss of his wife, his daughter, and now his beloved career, Felix has nothing left to lose. Now teaching Shakespeare at a prison, Felix takes inspiration from all of his losses to put on a production of The Tempest — casting himself as Prospero. Determined to seek vengeance, Felix lures Tony into the audience, leading up to an ending that is as turbulent as a raging storm…
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The Handmaid’s Tale
by Margaret Atwood
In an alternate reality of the United States, the Republic of Gilead is a dystopia that forbids women from reading and uses handmaids as involuntary surrogates for elite and infertile couples. Offred — an unnamed narrator labeled by her commander — is the handmaid for one of these couples. Offred fears that the Commander himself is infertile and that she will face exile if she can’t get pregnant. Between these present moments are flashbacks to a past when Offred was a wife, mother, career-woman, and most importantly — her own person. In order to preserve her life, Offred will risk it all by breaking the rules.
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The Testaments
by Margaret Atwood
34 years after its publication, but just 15 years after the events of The Handmaid’s Tale, comes its much-anticipated sequel. From the perspective of three women who are still under Gilead’s theocratic power, their lives will intersect in a way that just might bring Gilead crumbling down. These women will need to work together to reclaim their power and individualism not only for themselves, but for all the handmaids.
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In Other Worlds
by Margaret Atwood
The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments has qualified Atwood as a pro at writing science fiction. In this collection of essays, Atwood reflects on the genre — both as a reader and a writer — and the reasons for reimagining the world as either a utopia or a dystopia. In her essays, Atwood recalls the fantastical imaginings of her childhood and the forces that drove her to create her own sci-fi novels. Studded with appreciation for other writers in this space — including George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, and Ursula K. Le Guin — don’t be surprised if your own TBR pile grows after reading this book.
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Oryx and Crake
by Margaret Atwood
The first novel in the MaddAddam trilogy follows the character Snowman — previously named Jimmy — after the world around him collapses. Waking up after one of many catastrophic events, Snowman believes that he may be the last human alive. Snowman can do nothing but watch over the other living creatures known as the Children of Crake, and drift back into his sweet and sour past when he was still known as Jimmy. In his grief, Snowman, with the help of the Crakers, must venture through the wilderness as he looks for a means of survival — but there’s no telling what else might be out there.
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The Robber Bride
by Margaret Atwood
College friends Tony, Charis, and Roz are bonded in a way that goes beyond their alma mater — they are also united in their shared grief over having their husbands stolen by their manipulative friend, Zenia. The next time they see each other — and Zenia — again is at her funeral. Now, after regularly meeting for the past five years, under the presumption that Zenia is dead, she turns up again — alive and well. Despite their determination to confront her for all the pain and suffering she’s caused, Zenia continues to be a master at manipulation — and she won’t go down without a fight.
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Negotiating with the Dead
by Margaret Atwood
In a convergence of six lectures given by Atwood at the University of Cambridge in 2000, she divides this book into six sections — all relating to the subject of a writer on writing. Atwood dissects the relationship that a writer has with writing and answers questions like: what is a writer, how does a writer lead a double life, who a writer is supposed to admire, the relationship between an author, their reader, and the book that unites them, and more. Learn about the craft from a master.
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The Blind Assassin
by Margaret Atwood
This gothic suspense, romance, and science fiction novel begins with the mysterious death of a young woman named Laura Chase in 1945. Decades later, Laura’s sister Iris recounts her memories of their childhood, and of the dramatic deaths that have punctuated their wealthy, eccentric family’s history. Intertwined with Iris’s account are chapters from the scandalous novel that made Laura famous, in which two illicit lovers amuse each other by spinning a tale of a blind killer on a distant planet.
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Old Babes in the Wood
by Margaret Atwood
The two intrepid sisters of the title story grapple with loss and memory on a perfect summer evening; “Impatient Griselda” explores alienation and miscommunication with a fresh twist on a folkloric classic; and “My Evil Mother” touches on the fantastical, examining a mother-daughter relationship in which the mother purports to be a witch. At the heart of the collection are seven extraordinary stories that follow a married couple across the decades, the moments big and small that make up a long life of uncommon love — and what comes after.
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