Atwood's wonderful collection of lectures isn't so much advice on how to write as it is a series of ruminations on the deeper problems and joys of being a writer, such as what moral debt we may owe the reader. She calls on past great writers like helpful friends for their adivce (Lesley McDowell Sunday Herald)

As one of literature's luminaries, surely Margaret Atwood possesses a magical secret we can truffle out?

It's an absorbing book, which you read with pleasure and benefit...

'On Writers and Writing,' is frequently hilarious

(The Independent)Juggling well worn subjects which "get murky or pretentious", this is a streetwise, erudite suggestive enquiry into problems and myths of the writer's role. Her light touch on hard thoughts, her humour and eclectic quotations, lend enchantment to an argument that has as many undulating tentacles as a well developed sea anemone (Independent)Her witty, occasionally self-depracating and always ingenious approach is a delight (Sunday Times)A witty and profound rumination about writing (The Times)A playful, informed and briskly sensible discussion of the writing life (Sunday Telegraph)'an absorbing book, which you read with pleasure and benefit... the sense of an agile mind revolving sophisticated ideas' (Stevie Davies Independent)