The I Index

Burning Questions: Essays and Occasional Pieces, 2004 to 2021

Next in the queue

60

/100

I Index Overall Rating

Readers

56/100

Critics

35/100

Scholars

90/100

Author:

Margaret Atwood

Publisher:

Doubleday

Date:

March 1, 2022

In more than fifty pieces, Atwood aims her intellect and 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 debt to tech, the climate crisis to freedom; from when to dispense advice to the young (answer: only when asked) to how to define granola, we have no better guide to the many and varied mysteries of our universe.

What The Reviewers Say

Charles Arrowsmith,
The Washington Post
Burning Questions is a canny title for Margaret Atwood’s new book of essays and occasional pieces. It reflects both the urgency of the issues dear to her...and their combustibility, the risk that in writing about them she might get burned.
Dwight Garner,
The New York Times
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to collect their PEN International speeches between hard covers.
Stephanie Merritt,
The Observer (UK)
One of the most notable aspects of this collection is how engaged Atwood, now 82, has remained with the pressing issues of the day.
Mary Norris,
The Times Literary Supplement (UK)
She narrates her work, like a dressmaker with pins in her mouth chatting while she does a fitting. Sartor resarta.