Burning Questions, Margaret Atwood
Burning Questions, Margaret Atwood
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Burning Questions
Essays and Occasional Pieces, 2004 to 2021

Author: Margaret Atwood

Narrator: Margaret Atwood, Full Cast

Unabridged: 19 hr

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/01/2022

Synopsis

In this brilliant selection of essays, the award-winning, best-selling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments offers her funny, erudite, endlessly curious, and uncannily prescient take on everything from whether or not The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopia to the importance of how to define granola—and seeks answers to Burning Questions such as...

• Why do people everywhere, in all cultures, tell stories? Including thoughts on the writing of The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments, Oryx & Crake, and Atwood's other beloved works.
• How much of yourself can you give away without evaporating?
• How can we live on our planet?
• Is it true? And is it fair?
• What do zombies have to do with authoritarianism?

In more than fifty pieces, Atwood aims her prodigious intellect and impish humor at the world, and reports back to us on what she finds. This roller-coaster period brought the end of history, a financial crash, the rise of Trump, and a pandemic. From when to dispense advice to the young (answer: only when asked) to Atwood’s views on the climate crisis, we have no better guide to the many and varied mysteries of our universe.

About Margaret Atwood

It seems as though some people carry out their interests in many ways. Such has been the life of Canadian born Margaret Atwood. For someone who did not begin school until the age of 12, Atwood became an avid reader, which probably encouraged her development of varied interests. She identifies as a poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, inventor, teacher, and environmental activist. I doubt that spare time is in her agenda.

Beginning in 1961, Atwood has published 18 poetry collections, 18 novels, 11 non-fiction books, short fiction writings, two graphic novels, and various other smaller writings, both fiction and non-fiction. She has received several awards for her writings, with some of her works having been adapted for television and film. Those works increased her public exposure even more.

Atwood was married twice, divorced from one husband, and lost her second husband in 2019, after his unfortunate struggle with dimentia. The family, Atwood and her daughter, Eleanor Jess Atwood Gibson, had moved to a farm near Alliston, Ontario. Atwood has sister, Ruth, and a brother, Harold.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Regina

Here you have a 2022 collection of 50+ astute, yet sometimes overly-wordy, writings from Margaret Atwood that attempt to answer burning questions such as: Q: Is she still alive? A: Yes! This roundup includes: • Speeches she’s given on various societal concerns (eg global warming). • Book reviews and di......more

Goodreads review by Emily

Reading this book has made me want to reread some of Margaret Atwood’s novels again. I was luckily enough to go to one of her talks when she was in Oxford promoting hagseed and I recognise the wit she showed then, in these essays. So many were about incredibly important topics, such as climate chang......more

Goodreads review by leah

atwood’s voice is strong throughout all of these essays - the perfect mix of intelligence and wit. the collection feels slightly repetitive at times because a few essays are on the same subject, but if you read this over a few months it wouldn’t matter much. this just reminded me that i really need......more

Quotes

"[Burning Questions] reflects both the urgency of the issues dear to her—literature, feminism, the environment, human rights—and their combustibility...The book’s scope and the perspicacity of her writing evince the reading and thinking of a long life well lived."
—Washington Post

"Inspiring...Always in demand for her keen perception and bewitching storytelling, Atwood presents witty, parrying, and complexly illuminating tales about her long, ever-vital writing life."
—Booklist

"This collection is marked both by her ongoing concern with the ethical and moral issues her fiction raises and an appealing flexibility in terms of subject matter...Smart and concerned essays and arguments from an author whose global concerns haven’t flagged."
—Kirkus

“Canadian poet, novelist and literary critic Margaret Atwood’s diverse and intense interests in subjects from feminism to climate change are on full display in her latest book."
—Associated Press

"Atwood’s writing voice is both accessible and compelling: she invites you in, and you want to keep reading...Despite the difficult truths told across these many pages, there is humor here and there is hope...This collection clearly shows what many of us already know, Atwood is one of our greatest writers, and although she claims to not be prophetic (ha!), we should all pay attention to what she’s saying."
—The Brooklyn Rail

Praise for Margaret Atwood

“Margaret Atwood [is] a living legend.”
—The New York Times Book Review
 
“One of the most admired practitioners of the novel in North America.”
—Alan Cheuse, Chicago Tribune
"Brilliant...Atwood is a poet....as well as a contriver of fiction, and scarcely a sentence of her quick, dry yet avid prose fails to do useful work, adding to a picture that becomes enormous."
—The New Yorker
 
“There may be no novelist better suited to tapping the current era’s anxieties than Margaret Atwood.”
—Entertainment Weekly

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