Top 14 Best Margaret Atwood Books Updated 04 /2024

She won the Booker Prize for fiction, poetry, and critical essays. Atwood has written more than 50 books.

Handmaids from the 1985 book The Handmaid's Tale have become a symbol of resistance against the patriarchy around the world. This has led to activism all over the world.

We've put together a list of some of Atwood's best works so that you can start reading right away.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

The Handmaid's Tale was written by author Margaret Atwood in 1984, at a time when people were trying to fight back against liberal ideas from the 1970s. This movement was the inspiration for Gilead, which is a futuristic and totalitarian society set in the United States that was once part of the United States of America. Most of what Atwood used in the book comes from Puritan beliefs from the 17th century. This shows a patriarchal regime that doesn't give women their most basic rights. As if that wasn't bad enough, "Atwood decided not to put anything in that someone else had already done." Award-winning TV show: It's now in its third season. It's a metaphor for the current US government. Even though The Handmaid's Tale has been out for more than 40 years, it has never been more relevant.

The Testaments (2019)

The sequel to The Handmaid's Tale came out in 2019 and surprised and excited fans all over the world. The Testaments is set a few years after The Handmaid's Tale. It tells three stories from three different people: two girls who have had very different experiences in the now-rotting Republic of Gilead, and the legendary and ruthless Aunt Lydia, who readers met in The Handmaid's Tale. Atwood won the 2019 Booker Prize for The Testaments, which is about a group of people (which she shared with Bernardine Evaristo for Girl, Woman, Other).

Hag-seed (2017)

In Hag-seed, Atwood reads Shakespeare's The Tempest as part of the Hogarth Shakespeare project to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare. Felix, a reimagined version of Prospero, is the artistic director of a theater and wants to stage his own version of the play as revenge against his rivals. Fans of the Bard will love Hag-seed, which is based on the original. It's also interesting enough to read on its own. Hag-seed, which is full of humor and a little mischief, was nominated for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2017 long list.

Bodily Harm (1981)

Atwood's fifth book is about a young journalist named Rennie Wilford who travels to the Caribbean in an attempt to escape trauma and recover from an illness. She soon finds herself in a world where nothing is what it seems. Bodily Harm, by Margaret Atwood, is a story that moves back and forth between the past and the future and is often told in fragments. It's a multi-layered story that combines political turmoil with personal crisis while looking for a brighter future.

 

Life Before Man (1979)

Life Before Man is a multi-perspective book that shows a failing marriage in Toronto and the consequences of our protagonists' extramarital affairs. When Elizabeth and Nate cheat, they show that they don't care about each other's feelings. Into the mix are lovers from both the past and the present, with each chapter written from a different person's point of view. Atwood, on the other hand, chooses to write about people who aren't perfect or even likeable. She wants the reader to see both sides of this complicated relationship: male, female, right, wrong, and everything in-between. Don't expect a happy ending, but do expect Atwood to sum up modern life with terrifying ease.

Bluebeard’s Egg and Other Stories (1983)

Bluebeard's Egg and Other Stories was first published in 1983, long before The Handmaid's Tale. It's a collection of 12 short stories that use symbols to show how relationships work. From the politics of sex to the pain of betrayal, Atwood shows how complicated human relationships can be in a way that is often personal. This collection of short stories is a great way for people who want to start reading her books but don't want to spend a lot of time reading them. They are told with surprising humor.

Alias Grace 

Alias Grace is another one of Atwood's best-known books. He made the book public in 1996 and put it on a short list for the Booker Prize. It talks about how Thomas Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery were killed in the Canadian West in 1843. Grace Marks and James McDermott, two house servants, were found guilty of the crimes. Grace was sent to prison for life, and James was hanged. While the book is based on real events, Margaret Atwood makes them up to make the story of Grace and her doctor, Simon Jordon, more interesting. In the last few years, the book has been turned into a Netflix series.

Hag-Seed 

Hag-seed is one of Margaret Atwood's most recent books. It was released in 2016. Shakespeare wrote The Tempest. This is a different way of telling the story. Felix is a theater director who loses his job and gets a job at a prison, where he teaches English literacy. During his time at the prison, he decides to put on a new version of The Tempest with the other people who are there. Felix has a hard time dealing with the loss of his daughter. At the end of the book, he comes to terms with it and is back in his old job.

Surfacing 

Surfacing is one of Atwood's first novels. It was published in 1972. It tells the story of a young woman who goes to Canada to look for her father. This makes her think about her childhood, her home, and her relationship with her father. She has a partner, a poem, and a married couple with her when she goes out with them. As the book goes on, the protagonist loses her sense of reality a little bit at a time.

Cat’s Eye 

Cat's Eye was written in 1988 and tells the story of Elaine Risley, who was a teacher. As in other novels, she looks back at her youth and teenage years and thinks about them. A big part of the book talks about how she and two friends, Carol and Grace, played together when she was eight years old. There are times when she feels like she's an outsider and doesn't fit in with the people who are younger than her. The book also talks about how her childhood influenced her work as an artist.

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