Get the Summary of Margaret Atwood's Book of Lives in 20 minutes. Book of Lives (2025) by Margaret Atwood reveals how lived experience becomes literature, offering rare insight into the creative mind. In her memoir, Atwood traces her life through her writing-from the childhood cruelties behind Cat's Eye to the tense atmosphere of Cold War Berlin, where The Handmaid's Tale took shape. Atwood spent much of her childhood in remote Canadian forests, roaming freely while her entomologist father worked and her adventurous mother kept life running. Independent and imaginative from an early age, she grew up to become one of the greatest storytellers of our time.