by Ursula K Le Guin
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Released on: 5th December 2017
Synopsis:
Ursula K. Le Guin has taken readers to imaginary worlds for decades. Now she’s in the last great frontier of life, old age, and exploring new literary territory: the blog, a forum where her voice—sharp, witty, as compassionate as it is critical—shines. No Time to Spare collects the best of Ursula’s blog, presenting perfectly crystallized dispatches on what matters to her now, her concerns with this world, and her wonder at it.
On the absurdity of denying your age, she says, “If I’m ninety and believe I’m forty-five, I’m headed for a very bad time trying to get out of the bathtub.” On cultural perceptions of fantasy: “The direction of escape is toward freedom. So what is ‘escapism’ an accusation of?” On her new cat: “He still won’t sit on a lap…I don’t know if he ever will. He just doesn’t accept the lap hypothesis.” On breakfast: “Eating an egg from the shell takes not only practice, but resolution, even courage, possibly willingness to commit crime.” And on all that is unknown, all that we discover as we muddle through life: “How rich we are in knowledge, and in all that lies around us yet to learn. Billionaires, all of us.”
Rating: 4/5 stars
Review:
I received this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Ursula K. Le Guin has been one of my favourite authors since I first read "The Earthsea Cycle" when I was a teenager. After finishing Earthsea I proceeded to tackle the rest of her works and found myself shifting my point of view on main things. I like the way she tackles humanity without apologies and shows us things as they are and as they could be.
"No Time to Spare" is a collection of essay's that the author made on her online blog. As Le Guin states in the introduction she realised by reading Saramago's blog that she could have a space where she could express her views on ageing, belief and literature without necessarily having to interact with her readers. (However I find that Le Guin always interacts with me in a way or another as I keeping learning to see things through different eyes!)
I like the way Le Guin writes and tackles these issues with sincerity and honesty. I enjoyed her essays on ageing the most as I think it's something that's not often spoken about or when it is, it's always with a silver lighting which is the opposite of what Le Guin does. This is not to say that Le Guin doesn't take a positive approach but that she as a very "things are what they are" approach to it. On one of her essays she talks about people being the "age they fell" and not "the age they are" and she made me laugh when she stated “If I’m ninety and believe I’m forty-five, I’m headed for a very bad time trying to get out of the bathtub." I suppose I enjoy these essays as they give me a better understanding of my grandmothers and their ageing process, and how, no matter how young they feel, their bodies won't conform to it.
I enjoyed immensely these essays and would recommend them to anyone, even if you have never read Le Guin before as I think they are a beautiful insight into the author's mind.
Cat
Known bookaholic with a bit of a book hoarding issue. Cat loves books and everything that's related to them. She has a personal GoodReads account and she believes the world is a better place for it (AKA no more repeated books from relatives as gifts!). She now lives in the UK and can often be found anywhere books are sold.
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