Book of Lives
- NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Book of Lives by Margaret Atwood is one of 2026's most credible books, appearing on 1 of the year's most respected lists, including The Guardian, for a Consensus Score of 16 out of 100.
Appears on these lists
Our take
AI-draftedAt nearly six hundred pages, Atwood's first memoir covers eight-plus decades with the same digressive curiosity that marks her fiction, moving between her own writing life and long detours into the people around her, illustrated throughout with photographs and drawings. Reviewers have largely responded to its tonal control: it reads as funny and wise rather than solemn. The recurring reservation is proportion: the book spends so much time on friends, collaborators, and incidental figures that Atwood's own account of how she actually writes gets comparatively short shrift.
In the press
“Has to be the most spectacular, hilarious, and generous autobiography of the last quarter century”
Leigh Haber, The Boston Globe“My single complaint about this charming, interesting and witty 599-page book is that it feels a bit completist at times”
Marion Winik, Star Tribune
How the Consensus Score is calculated
Our Consensus Score is our own transparent editorial metric — not a user rating. It weighs each list by the credibility of its source, how recent the listing is, and any award status. Here is the full breakdown.
| Source | Authority | Recency | Award | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Guardian | 0.85 | 0.85 | 1.00× | 0.72 |
| Weighted sum → Score | 0.72 → 16 | |||
Similar consensus books
Because they appear on some of the same lists.
Frequently asked
What lists is Book of Lives on?
Book of Lives appears on 1 list in our 2026 corpus, including The Guardian.
What is its Consensus Score?
Book of Lives has a Consensus Score of 16 out of 100, our transparent editorial measure of how many credible lists agree on it.