She also states she had a "wide but indiscriminate" reading list until the age of sixteen that including Jane Austen, Moby Dick and Forever Amber as well as pulp science fiction and True Romance Magazines.

Reviews have noted that "The essays also cover a vast range of readings, as if they comprised an undergraduate survey of the best that has been thought and said in English, Canadian, and (sometimes) European literature.

"[2] Examples of the works Atwood draws on range from Ian McEwan’s short story "Reflections of A Kept Ape" to The Epic of Gilgamesh.

In "Temptation" Atwood spends most of the chapter drawing parallels between the position of the author and the Wizard of Oz from L. Frank Baum’s work, Prospero in Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Henrik Höfgen in Klaus Mann’s Mephisto.

In the epigraph for the chapter "Orientation" Atwood includes five quotations addressing Canadian literature, suggesting the impact of her nationality on her writing.

The British publication Telegraph commented "Atwood offers a playful, informed and briskly sensible discussion of the writing life.

"[2] The major critique of this piece of non-fiction is the lack of organization and obvious origins of the work as an oral and not a written form of communication.