Margaret Atwood had to be persuaded to write a memoir. The thought of writing about herself initially seemed “dead boring. Who wants to read about someone sitting at a desk messing up blank sheets of paper?” Yet, she continues, time passed and the possibility of a memoir took on a “lurid phosphorescent glow. ‘Wasn’t there something appealing in the idea?’ my sinister alter ego whispered … I could thank my benefactors, reward my friends, trash my enemies and pay off scores long forgotten by everyone but me.”
Subtitled “A Memoir of Sorts”, Book of Lives is the Canadian author’s account of her loves, losses and literary achievements (she has written just over 50 books, including novels, short stories and poetry collections), and a fine showcase for her wisdom and wit. What little score-settling she includes is purely for the punchline. When a poet told Atwood in the early 1970s that she wrote like a man – he intended it as a compliment – she told him he forgot the punctuation. “What you meant was, ‘She writes. Like a man’.”
The book is read by the author, who is 86. Her narration is leisurely, gravelly, drily funny and unmistakeably Atwood. Though she admits she can’t recall much about her early books, she remembers enough about the important ones, most notably 1986’s The Handmaid’s Tale, her landmark novel set in a dystopian future. When she showed an early draft to the novelist Valerie Martin, Atwood said: “I think I’m gonna get into trouble.” Martin read it and told her: “I think you’re gonna make a lot of money.”
Available via Vintage Digital, 25hr 36min
Further listening
The Persian
David McCloskey, Swift Press Audio, 13hr 23min
This tense spy thriller from the CIA analyst turned author and podcaster sees Kamran, a Jewish Iranian dentist living in Sweden after being driven out of Iran, returning to his home country as a Mossad agent. Fajer Al-Kaisi is the narrator.
Elemental
Arthur Snell, Wildfire, 12hr 28min
Former diplomat Snell reads his compelling study of the huge geopolitical problems caused by the climate crisis – including mass migration, drought, rising sea levels and food and energy shortages – and how they can be addressed.
