No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters by Ursula K. Le GuinMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I picked up this book the other night, knowing that it was a series of essays. Perfect when I needed some company as I waited for a pill to take effect, but which I could then set aside and return to after finishing two other books or so I thought. What actually happened was that Ursula K. le Guin's wonderful voice seized me, hijacking my attention until I was finished.
Her wise and wonderful voice was entrancing. An obvious admirer of the natural world and an acceptor of the scientific point of view, while still able to entertain more spiritual beliefs. She saw no reason why a person could not contain all those things, which I could not agree with more. She experienced awe in the natural world or at the opera. She reflects on writing, on fan mail, on feminism, on her latest cat, and on the trials of old age. I don't get fan mail and I don't have a cat, but I can relate to the other concerns.
I also appreciated her as a woman writing speculative fiction during a time when it was (more) difficult to be a woman author in that genre. Some of her contemporaries wrote under gender neutral pen names, but Ursula remained Ursula. And she wrote some marvelous books. Although I rather wish that I had sent her an email to let her know that her fiction was meaningful to me, but I'm comforted by knowing that she appreciated these notes while also considering them a bit of a weight—her personal code seemed to feel that such communications required acknowledgment. I'm glad I didn't add a burden to her life.
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