The quest for identity: Survival: a thematic guide to Canadian literature (1972), Surfacing (1972)
Constraining the feminine: The edible woman (1969), Lady Oracle (1976)
Explorations, bones and murders: the short stories (1977-95); early short stories (1977); Dancing girls (1977); True stories (1981); Murder in the dark (1983); Bluebeard's egg (1983); Wilderness tips (1991); Good bones (1992); Bones and murder (1995)
Violence, trauma and history: Life before man (1979), Bodily harm (1981)
The oppressive future: The handmaid's tale (1985)
Feminist Gothic: Cat's eye (1988), The robber bride (1993)
No nearer the truth: versions of fictionalising: Alias Grace (1996)
Rewriting history and myth: The blind assassin (2000), The Penelopiad (2005)
Writers, readers, constructions of the real and the future: Oryx and Crake (2003)
Re-telling old tales: Moral disorder (2006), The tent (2006)
The end of the world? The year of the flood (2009)