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Lady Oracle

by Margaret Atwood (Goodreads Author)

3.64 of 5 stars 3.64 · rating details · 5,284 ratings · 269 reviews

Joan Foster is the bored wife of a myopic ban-the-bomber.She takes off overnight as Canada's new superpoet, pens lurid gothics on the sly, attracts a blackmailing reporter, skids cheerfully in and out of menacing plots, hair-raising traps, and passionate trysts, and lands dead and well in Terremoto, Italy.In this remarkable, poetic, and magical novel, Margaret Atwood prove...more

Paperback, 346 pages

Published December 1st 1995 by Bantam (first published 1976)

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Sep 12, 2007 Katie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people who read for the language of the book, not necessarily for plot

I am a big Margaret Atwood fan, mainly for her writing. Her books don't always have a lot of plot and sometimes I find her endings too pat, but I still devour her books for the language. Lady Oracle has one of my favorite beginnings to a book:

"I planned my death carefully; unlike my life, which meandered along from one thing to another, despite my feeble attempts to control it. My life had a tendency to spread, get flabby, to scroll and festoon life the frame of a baroque mirror, which came from...more

8 likes · like · see review

Dec 17, 2007 Megan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sickly funny, in a way that's typically attributed only to men. The book begins with the narrator's (a writer of Harlequin romances) own faked death and becomes, finally, a woman writer enjoying her woman-ness, fat jokes and all. You could talk to this book over coffee about things that matter in your life, and it wouldn't start crying and gushing about Oprah. Plus it's got a delicious title. I can't believe it is a second novel.

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Sep 26, 2007 Lissa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I love Margaret Atwood and she can do (almost) no wrong, so it's probably not shocking that I really liked this book. After all, I have read (in order): The Handmaid's Tale (multiple times), Cat's Eye, Robber Bride (I should go back and re-read these as it's been a long time) The Blind Assassin, Alias Grace and The Penelopiad.

Lady Oracle treads over some of what most readers of Margaret Atwood will realize is familiar ground. The premise of the book is that Joan Foster, a woman who for all appea...more I love Margaret Atwood and she can do (almost) no wrong, so it's probably not shocking that I really liked this book. After all, I have read (in order): The Handmaid's Tale (multiple times), Cat's Eye, Robber Bride (I should go back and re-read these as it's been a long time) The Blind Assassin, Alias Grace and The Penelopiad.

Lady Oracle treads over some of what most readers of Margaret Atwood will realize is familiar ground. The premise of the book is that Joan Foster, a woman who for all appearances seems to be a success, has found herself unable to escape the mess she's made of her life. Therefore, she decides to fake her death and embark on a new life. However, most of the book is not dedicated to this new life - in fact, it only appears briefly in the beginning and occasionally throughout other parts of the book. Instead, the book in the story of her life. Through her recollections (starting from childhood) we see how things like childhood and teenage obesity, a controlling mother, an absent father, and and emotionally distant husband shape the way that she views the rest of her life and ultimately leads to the mess that she has made. Joan Foster is incidentally a closet writer of gothic romances, and many of the parts of her story and interspersed with snippets of the books that she writes as well.

Lady Oracle is one of her earliest books, written before her success with The Handmaid's Tale. It doesn't quite have the same lyric quality to the writing that some of her later novels have. It's also interesting to see the way that some of the themes from this early novel appeared later in The Blind Assassin, like the secret novels, the way that the book passages are written into the narrator's life story, and the possible death by drowning.

I remember my friend E reading this book and not particularly liking it. Certainly, it's less polished than her later work. That being said, some of this book really resonated with me and I would still recommend it almost without reservation.(less)

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Sep 11, 2007 Ree rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: someone interested in jouissance

I read lady oracle to complete my lit degree. Well, this one is nice storytelling with metafiction and some fantasies. Atwood always build her character with her alienation towards her surrounding, to let her character find her own identity.

This character, Joan Foster is built to overcome her problem of writing Gothic Romance, which seems very non-intellectual works compared to her husband's, Arthur, an activist who likes to stamp footnotes in his politic books.

Joan is only able to write escapi...more

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Jan 13, 2008 Catherine rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book really pissed me off. I guess there's no real character arc. The main character starts out weak, unself-aware and just really messed up (for plenty of good reason, so I did sympathize with her) -- but nothing has really changed by the end of the book. She's still messed up and unself-aware. Ugh. The whole book made me feel really impatient and uncomfortable. I felt kind of sick and nervous the whole time I was reading it, as if doom was just around the corner. That probably says a lot...more

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Sep 23, 2007 Linda rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: those that want to escape.

Shelves: thanksgivingdinnerfiction

This is one of those books that makes you feel kind of intellectual, but doesn't take any effort at all to slip into. Who can't relate to wanting to escape the life that you've built, or let happen, around you, at least from time to time? Atwood is such an accomplished writer that the themes are almost secondary to her skill with the language. A pure pleasure to read.

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Feb 25, 2008 Allan Sanedrin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Allan by: Book Club

After reading this book, I feel like I have to re-read it again. The story is reavealed to to the reader in such a way that you might not exactly know what's going on until chapters later. Throughout the book, you feel as if something underlying is going on. And at the end, you just want to psychoanalyze the main character.

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Jun 18, 2007 Ash rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favourites, mystery

This is my favourite of Atwood's books, probably because in some ways it's the silliest. Joan Foster is melodramatic and hapless, but entirely loveable. Plus, there's a mystery! And a fake death! And a secret life in a foreign villa! It's kind of like reading a romance novel, only a lot more with the intentional funny.

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Aug 15, 2007 Amy Geriak rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Atwood's books are all a bit quirky, strange, difficult -- not your typical novels to pick up and enjoy an escape. They all can be quite dark, searching, haunting, etc. Of all of her books, this was my favorite, second to Handmaid's Tale.

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Apr 07, 2007 Geetanjali Shrivastava rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I enjoyed this one for it's outrageous take-off on the gothic form, and its moments of dark humour!

My review http://literarymosaic.blogspot.com/20...

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Jul 27, 2007 Kate rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: own-currently

Charming, hilarious fun (though this might be one of the more pointedly anti-American ones, which bugs me).

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Jul 21, 2010 Jamie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Atwood fans, lovers of the gothic

Recommended to Jamie by: my thesis advisor

Shelves: thesis

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. It seems many of the reviews of this book call it an embarrassment to Atwood's oeuvre--I'm really not sure why, as it's really quite an enjoyable read, if not the most "important" book Atwood's written. But then, as I continue to move through Atwood's body of work, I see her stuff split into two factions: you have the 'issue' novels, like Handmaid's Tale and Oryx & Crake and, to a lesser extent, Robber Bride and Cat's Eye; then there are the sort of 'throwaway' novels that have Atwood's wit...more It seems many of the reviews of this book call it an embarrassment to Atwood's oeuvre--I'm really not sure why, as it's really quite an enjoyable read, if not the most "important" book Atwood's written. But then, as I continue to move through Atwood's body of work, I see her stuff split into two factions: you have the 'issue' novels, like Handmaid's Tale and Oryx & Crake and, to a lesser extent, Robber Bride and Cat's Eye; then there are the sort of 'throwaway' novels that have Atwood's wit and shrewd eye, but don't necessarily come across as politically motivated books. I would put Lady Oracle in this category, along with Edible Woman and perhaps some of her short stories. I'm looking forward to seeing where the next ones I'm plunging into (Alias Grace, and after, Blind Assassin) will go.

Lady Oracle focuses on Joan Foster, a secret writer of costume gothics and a woman who fakes her own death in order to get away from the tangled web she's woven around her life. There's really not much more to the plot than that, but then, Atwood's work is very rarely plot-centered. The book is definitely a page-turner--I managed to get through it in three days, and that was during exams! Her style by this novel was really gaining force; I saw many echoes from her first novel, Edible Woman, in this one, particularly in terms of her dealings with eating disorders and the psychic-splitting of the self in women under a patriarchal order. In these themes, I certainly think Atwood's motive was political, and she handles them far better in "LO" than in "EW." While a lot of reviewers say Joan Foster is a self-pitying wuss, I actually felt she managed to gain a great deal of agency through the text, though of course her obsession with the gothic romance narrative seems problematic on the surface. But as with most Atwood protagonists, their split selves result from the sort of overarching cultural scripts that are forced upon us--so here, it's the gothic romantic ideals of love; in EW and Robber Bride, it's the fairy tale narrative; so on and so forth. So with Atwood, I typically think if something is coming off as problematic, it's worth a closer look on a large scale level.

Anyhow, I loved Lady Oracle. It's a quick read, Joan's fat childhood is both hilarious and emotionally potent (and the Royal Porcupine--another Duncan figure--is so well-done), and the writing is of course superb. Definitely worth it, especially over the holiday season as a sort of pleasant, relaxed read.(less)

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Moira Russell GoodReads is fucking me over wrt comments too! wtf? And the feed doesn't work so hot anymore, either. Argh.

That was my sense of the response to Lady O...more
Jul 21, 2010 04:43pm

Jamie Are you not receiving your GR notifications, either? I used to get emails--for group digests, friend requests, comments, &co--but haven't for a co...more Are you not receiving your GR notifications, either? I used to get emails--for group digests, friend requests, comments, &co--but haven't for a couple of months now. Only recently realized this--I wonder if contacting them will do any good, because it's robbed me of one of my favorite bits about the site--dialogue with other people on here.

At any rate, Bodily Harm, Life Before Man, and Surfacing are now the only Atwood novels I haven't read (oh, and I guess The Penelopiad), so I can't speak to those, but I hardly find Offred (is June her real name? How have I never caught that?) to be a 'wimp.' I think the circumstances she's trapped in shift the parameters of 'heroism'--it's a scenario where simply making it through the day seems to be brave. In fact, I recently got my first tattoo, taken from that novel ("Nolite te bastardes carborundorum"), because I find that moment to be a stunning representation of rebellion, which maybe wouldn't necessarily seem all that courageous. But even to hold onto a phrase & a fantasy that has no tangible meaning to her--until the Commander tells her--as a way of survival seems particularly poignant to me.

I've likewise been fascinated by the Atwood-feminism intersection since first reading her; namely, because she's been raised up as a feminist author despite her very open and explicit aversion to the identification, but also because it seems to place her in a very particular niche in criticism. Most of the people in my grad program, for instance, haven't read Atwood (with the exception of my firecracker feminist partner-in-crime), and many seem to consider her more of a 'pop' author than a 'serious' one, which has always confused me. Accessibility =/= Stephenie Meyer-style literary value.

And why O&C and YOTF have gotten such pointed attention from the press startles me, too. I thought YOTF was an incredible novel; maybe one of her best. But O&C sometimes feels like a novel someone else wrote, as if she was finding her footing for YOTF, but hadn't quite inhabited it. I love O&C, I just think it's a bit anomalous in her oeuvre--but then, as you say, maybe that's in fact why critics have taken such a shine to it. Well, not to mention, both of them are very much of-the-time, particularly with waves and waves of people generally uninterested in environmental politics suddenly calling themselves "green" and waving a flag around.(less)
Jul 23, 2010 07:14am

Nov 20, 2011 Katie Elle rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Thoughts:

I liked the development of the character as having multiple, secret lives, and multiple "personalities". The formerly fat self, that never leaves her and continues to haunt her.

Everyone has multiple versions of themselves, and "lives" kept separate. Most of us have pasts that we wish would leave us alone but continue to follow us through life. Joan just takes all this to an extreme.

I liked how Joan's novel (the story within the story) reflected her own life. It was subtle and well don...more

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Apr 17, 2008 Rea rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I love M. Atwood, but this book...I still can't believe she wrote it.

In most cases Atwood's themes revolve around women in some form or another. For the first time I felt myself becoming so frustrated with the female protagonist. I wanted to slap her and tell her to (ironically) grow some balls and stop feeling sorry for herself; there are people who have worst problems! She was weak and doubtful for superficial reasons and I couldn't believe Atwood would resort to using weight a major reason fo...more

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Feb 09, 2010 Melissa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010

I loved this book. Joan Foster creates seperate identities in order to cope; she destroys those identities in order to exist. The Lady of Shallot, spiritualism, socialism, and gothic romance novels... self-realization made quirky and fun.

1 like · like · see review

Mar 25, 2013 Rona Simmons rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Another engaging tale of a dysfuntional woman, this time with a different twist: a woman’s quest to find her identity among many she takes on, presumably because she dislikes her true being. She escapes from her own life into the Costume Gothic romances she writes and falls in love or what she thinks is love at the moment with several men, each of whom have their own multiple personalities. The woman’s early years are tortured living with a mother who cannot accept her overweight daughter who ga...more

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Feb 07, 2013 Pam Bustin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: what-i-read-in-2013, feminist-reads

Shit. I’d danced right through the broken glass, in my bare feet too. Some butterfly. I limped into the main room, trailing bloody footprints and looking for a towel. I washed my feet in the bathtub, the soles looked as if they’d been minced. The real red shoes, the feet punished for dancing. You could dance, or you could have the love of a good man. But you were afraid to dance, because you had this unnatural fear that if you danced they’d cut your feet off so you wouldn’t be able to dance. Fi

...more

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Aug 18, 2011 Tania Brzovic rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I love Margaret Atwood. She's one of my favorite authors. This book didn't quite live up to my expectations of her. I thought the main character, Joan, was great. Very well developed. I related to her and I cared what happened to her. As usual, the best parts of this book were the sections that dealt with Joan's complicated family relationships, her romantic life, and her childhood. Nobody can understand the complexities of female friendship better than Atwood. Atwood uses flashbacks to tell the...more

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Apr 02, 2011 Rosie Gaunt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Lady Oracle. The quote on the cover of my copy, taken from a review in Time magazine, reads 'A mistress of controlled hysteria'. I am assuming here that they are referring to Atwood and not the novel's protagonist, who is a mistress (indeed numerous men's mistress) and yet a mistress of nothing, and that's not even mentioning how stratospherically out of control her hysteria is. It is true that, as many reviews proclaim, protagonist Joan Foster (just one of her many names) is hard to like, but t...more Lady Oracle. The quote on the cover of my copy, taken from a review in Time magazine, reads 'A mistress of controlled hysteria'. I am assuming here that they are referring to Atwood and not the novel's protagonist, who is a mistress (indeed numerous men's mistress) and yet a mistress of nothing, and that's not even mentioning how stratospherically out of control her hysteria is. It is true that, as many reviews proclaim, protagonist Joan Foster (just one of her many names) is hard to like, but that is also what makes the novel a fascinating read; retracing the story of her many love lives, lives, and her slips into the confused madness of that 'world of unseen visions and heard silences' - the mind. What is absorbing, and haunting, and the true genius of Atwood's accomplishment is the sense that what you are reading is real, that it is an autobiography; which makes the awful parts that much more unbearably sad and the funny parts that much more darn funny. The novel is funny, mostly because you feel Atwood just has a different grip on reality than the rest of us; she notices, and recounts odd things and has a, refreshingly, peculiar turn of phrase. The end result has all the polish of the work of a prize-winning poet laureate, with the raw talent and emotion of a little known blogger. The result is a winner, of course, and as much as I truly abhor the coupling of 'hysteria' ('controlled' or not) with woman, particularly a female writer, Atwood does indeed narrate a woman's deterioration, or indulgence, into 'hysteria' - something that is she gives such life to, that I was compelled, for the first time in my life, to read to the end of the novel as fast as I could out of pure anxiety. Alas, the end was a bit of an anti-climax, but perhaps, on reflection, that's the whole point. The novel was never meant to be about a culmination, but a journey: and one you feel that even though the printed words on the page end, it continues, somewhere in the aether of reality or literature-yet-to-be-written. Indeed, one of my favourite aspects of the novel is the winding odyssey through the labyrinth of literature and life, and all the frayed, blurred edges between them. Lady Oracle is certainly a classic modern gothic, and yet one that incessantly mocks the genre: this is a truly extraordinary work.

Check out more of my book, film, music music reviews and general chit chat about fashion, current affairs and more on my blog: http://impaledonmyiambics.weebly.com/(less)

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May 19, 2010 Surreysmum rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1982, canlit

[These notes were made in 1982:]. Although still contemptuous of Canadian literature in general (old habits die hard), I find I begin to appreciate certain particular authors, and Margaret Atwood is definitely one of them. She has the uncanny knack of making each of her novels seem autobiographical, which I suppose is merely another way of paying tribute to the convincing verisimilitude of her detail, exterior and interior. A good part of this particular novel hit home very hard, for it details...more

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Oct 22, 2007 Rachel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Atwood fans

Shelves: for-a-class

A good book, but not a great book. A fascinating tale of a woman who writes "lurid Gothics" in her spare time, becomes a fraud of a poet overnight and fakes her own death to escape her multiple, bizarre affairs (including one with a man named, I kid you not, the Royal Porcupine).

Somehow, Atwood manages to make this sound a lot less zany than it comes off. The ending has an unresolved quality that is very symptomatic (I feel) of Atwood's earlier novels. A brilliant read, flaws and all.

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Nov 20, 2012 Rebecca Scaglione (Love at First Book) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“I planned my death carefully. . .”

Who would not be hooked on those first 5 words of the novel Lady Oracle by Margaret Atwood? Especially with the knowledge I have about a recent read (which I won’t say because it will give away part of the book, but those of you who have also read it recently know what I’m talking about!!!!).

Joan is a gothic romance author who has hidden her entire life from her true being. She was a very overweight child who never was happy and hid her true feelings from her...more

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Feb 10, 2012 Judith Lewis rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really enjoyed reading this book. Atwood is a fantastic and intelligent writer, smooth and easy to read with great metaphors and images, that never intrude in a way that suggests the author is showing off, but that resonate and ring true to the plot and characters. And yet - the end didn't quite seem to work for me. It felt as if she didn't quite know how to finish things off, unless I am missing a fundamental point somewhere. The story is engaging - fat child, using her obesity as a weapon ag...more

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May 11, 2009 Rebecca rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Atwood fans

This book starts off really promising and has a lot of potential to be a really interesting story about a girl's relationship with her mother and her problems with her body image and self-esteem. The middle and end portions of the book, though, were complete flops for me. The story took weird, rambling turns, and none of the characters except for the protagonist, Joan, and her mother were at all believable -- most of them were too dull for real life, or too weird. The tone of the story also seem...more

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Mar 24, 2012 Fiona rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: oh-you-clever-author-you, highbrow-literachoor, read-in-2012, library-books

Um, well. I love Margaret Atwood and this was up there with the good ones - I love how she brings you through the main character's growing up so that you can see why she got to where she is. It's something that she does so well.

Unfortunately, she seemed to get bored of the whole thing about fifty pages from the end and decide that now was the moment to wrap it all up very quickly. So she did: loose ends were knotted with an efficiency that knew no bounds, which was a bit of a shame, because it c...more

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Sep 09, 2011 Jennifer rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It was a quicker read than I thought. I thought a lot of Joan's thoughts and fears were relatable and her flashbacks, especially later on in the book, kept me engaged. She's a pretty smart, although somewhat paranoid character, considering how she managed to escape many of her problems through believable yet intricate lies. I'm disappointed though in the ending of the book. I don't know what I expected but it felt it was going to be more shocking than what you get. Despite being entertained by h...more

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Mar 03, 2013 Julie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: canadian-lit

I found myself to be completely fascinated this novel, particularly they main character Jane, who made the novel one that I could sit and read for hours - and it is up there with some of my favourite works by the author.

The plot was well done, and although I did like aspects of the story within the story, I found that was the one aspect of the novel that bothered me the most - although there were parallels to both plot threads, I found it to be slightly disruptive. I do think Atwood did a good...more

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Apr 02, 2012 Z rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012

Ah, Atwood. I am in awe of her - I feel like the mention of her name ought to be coupled with some sort of honorific - but Lady Oracle disappoints. This is strictly a book for people who have read a lot of Atwood previously and know enough not to judge her by this aberration. Lady Oracle is an early Atwood, and some themes that she later revitalises and polishes in books like the Blind Assassin, Bodily Harm and the incomparable Cat's Eye make their first appearances here - but Joan, the protagon...more Ah, Atwood. I am in awe of her - I feel like the mention of her name ought to be coupled with some sort of honorific - but Lady Oracle disappoints. This is strictly a book for people who have read a lot of Atwood previously and know enough not to judge her by this aberration. Lady Oracle is an early Atwood, and some themes that she later revitalises and polishes in books like the Blind Assassin, Bodily Harm and the incomparable Cat's Eye make their first appearances here - but Joan, the protagonist in this one, doesn't manage to connect with readers. I simply could not identify with most of her feelings, which is odd, since Atwood specialises in putting into (beautiful) words the commonest of feelings that everyone experiences but cannot adequately articulate. Nor could I learn from them, the way one does from reading about strange lands and encounters (think Amitav Ghosh, the Glass Palace).

Joan grows up overweight and rather oppressed; she manages to lose "the avoirdupois," as a character in the book describes it, but her initial perception of herself as a Fat Lady haunts her; her love life is half-hearted but well-intentioned; she secretly writes trashy romance novels, but finally publishes a book of broken poetry under her own name, earning a measure of fame; and then she must disappear, she must stage her own death to save herself from a situation she has created. There's a story in there somewhere but it almost feels like Atwood didn't have the interest to carry it through to perfection, so she's kind of scribbled in a plotline and allowed Joan to float through it, colouring outside the margins.

Nevertheless, since this is Atwood, after all, the book redeems itself in fits and starts. One of my favourite paragraphs, where Joan is trying to think up plots for her new story, revealing much about not just the story but also Joan herself:

For the next three days I tried to work. I sat in front of the typewriter with my eyes closed, waiting for the plot to unroll itself effortlessly behind my eyes, like a movie. But something was blocking it, there was static. I'd taken Charlotte through several narrow escapes: twice she'd been on the verge of rape, and she'd almost been murdered once (arsenic in the Spotted Dick pudding, causing severe vomiting). I knew what had to happen. Felicia, of course, would have to die; such was the fate of wives. Charlotte would then be free to become a wife in her turn. But first she would have a final battle with Redmond and hit him with something (a candelabrum, a poker, a stone, any hard sharp object would do), knocking him out and inducing brain fever with hallucinations, during which his features and desires would be purified by suffering and he would murmur her name. She would nurse him with cold compresses and realize how deeply she loved him; then he would awaken in his right mind and propose. That was one course of action. The other would be a final attempt on her life, with a rescue by Redmond, after which he would reveal how deeply he loved her, with optional brain fever on her part. These were the desired goals, but I was having trouble reaching them.(less)

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Nov 20, 2009 Lauren rated it 3 of 5 stars

Having only previously read The Handmaid's Tale (and having been really impressed by that experience), I had high expectations. This book only partly delivered. It took me quite a few chapters to find the narrator empathetic - or even interesting beyond her surface quirks. In fact, her surface quirks and eccentricities disoriented me for quite a while. What kept me reading was my faith that Margaret Atwood had to know what she was doing, right?
I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the long trip...more

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Feb 27, 2012 Jane Odgers rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The novel's protagonist, Joan Foster, is a romance novelist who has spent her life running away from difficult situations. The novel alternates between flashbacks from the past and scenes from the present. Through flashbacks, the reader sees her first as an overweight child whose mother constantly criticizes her, and later, hiding her career, her past as the mistress of a Polish count, and her affair with a performance artist called The Royal Porcupine from her bipolar husband Arthur.

In the pres...more

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About Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa and grew up in northern Ontario, Quebec, and Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master's degree from Radcliffe College.

Throughout her writing career, Margaret Atwood has received numerous awards and honourary degrees. She is the author of more than thirty-five volumes of poetry, childr...more

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Books by Margaret Atwood

The Year of the Flood (MaddAddam Trilogy, #2)

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Quotes from Lady Oracle

“How could I be sleeping with this particular man.... Surely only true love could justify my lack of taste.” — 255 people liked it

“I planned my death carefully, unlike my life, which meandered along from one thing to another, despite my feeble attempts to control it.” — 48 people liked it

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