Burning Questions - by Margaret Atwood

About the Book

"A new collection of essays from Margaret Atwood, the internationally acclaimed, award-winning author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments. Short Description / Web 'About this Book' From literary icon Margaret Atwood comes a brilliant collection of nonfiction-funny, erudite, intimate, impassioned, and always startlingly prescient-which grapples with such wide-ranging topics as: Why do people everywhere, in all cultures, tell stories? How do we get rid of the immense amount of plastic that's littering our seas and lands? How much of yourself can you give away without evaporating? Is science fiction now writing us? So what if beauty is only skin deep? What do zombies have to do with authoritarianism? Is it true? And is it fair? In over fifty pieces, taken from lectures, autobiographical essays, book reviews, cultural criticism, obituaries, and new introductions to her own body of work (including The Handmaid's Tale thirty years after its initial publication) as well as that of other writers, we watch Atwood aim her prodigious intellect and impish humor at the world, and report back to us on what she finds. From asking what society's youth expects from its elders (2004), to pondering the philosophical underpinnings of debt (2008, not surprisingly), to encountering a mysterious new platform called Twitter (2009), to asking if it is, in fact, too late to save the planet (2015) or what forces have been unleashed in the age of Trump (2016), and culminating in a breathtaking meditation on grief and poetry in the wake of her own loss (2020), Atwood provokes, probes, delights, surprises, and rewards the reader at every turn"--

Book Synopsis

In this brilliant selection of essays--including three new pieces--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.

Review 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

About the Author

MARGARET ATWOOD, whose work has been published in more than forty-five countries, is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry, critical essays, and graphic novels. In addition to The Handmaid's Tale, now an award-winning TV series, her novels include Cat's Eye, short-listed for the 1989 Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; Oryx and Crake, short-listed for the 2003 Man Booker Prize; The Year of the Flood, MaddAddam; and Hag-Seed. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Franz Kafka Prize, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Los Angeles Times Innovator's Award. In 2019, she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature.