Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
Words Are My Matter: Writings about Life and Books, 2000-2015, with a Journal of a Writer's Week
Words Are My Matter: Writings about Life and Books, 2000-2015, with a Journal of a Writer's Week | Ursula K Le Guin
Praise for Ursula K. Le Guin: "I read her nonstop growing up and read her still. What makes her so extraordinary for me is that her commitment to the consequences of our actions, of our all too human frailties, is unflinching and almost without precedent for a writer of such human optimism."Junot Diaz"A lot of her work is about telling stories, and what it means to tell stories, and what stories look like. She's been extremely influential on me in that area of what I, as a beginning writer, thought a story must look like, and the much more expan-sive view I have now of what a story can be and can do."Karen Joy Fowler"She was and remains a central figure for me."Michael ChabonUrsula K. Le Guin is one of our foremost public literary intellectuals and this collection of her recent talks, essays, introductions, and book reviews is the best manual we have for traveling the worlds explored in recent fiction; the most useful guide to the country we're visiting, life.Ursula K. Le Guin was born in Berkeley, California, in 1929. Among her honors are the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, a National Book Award, the Hugo, Nebula, and Kafka awards, a Pushcart Prize, and the Harold D. Vursell Me-morial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Portland, Ore-gon."
Amazon Indiebound Barnes and Noble WorldCat Goodreads LibraryThing
Pick icon
100%
blurb
jmofo
post image

I‘ve signed up for this and it‘s good timing.
I had to cancel a trip to visit a friend to celebrate #Nowruz but we‘ll read some poems to each other via facetime, even though facetime is not something I love.
Looking forward to giving this book the time it deserves.
#24in48

mcipher Love that - FaceTime poetry!! 💕 4y
28 likes1 comment
review
jungleclams
Pickpick

i love le guin and she goes IN on some shid in here, but its always a bummer to read a collection of someones thoughts from the same type of publication from the same decade span of time, because they do tend to repeat themselves. the points she makes are brilliant and shes perfect, but read over a longer spam, and savor it

review
Briary
post image
Pickpick

I have a confession. I have only read Le Guin's non-fiction, her other writing has never really clicked with me. But her hoo boy do I like her essays and her writing in these little books. My favorite has been The Wave in the Mind, and this one shares a few essays in the beginning. This one also has more book reviews, which I'm maybe not that keen on, but let's face it, Le Guin can pretty much write about anything and make it interesting.

blurb
Briary
post image

After my wonderful Easter holiday and Readathon, returning to real world has reaaaally been kicking my butt. I miss having freedom to just read, read, read.

But at least I've been able to continue reading Le Guin and that does ease up some of my misery. I've already read her No Time To Spare and The Wave In the Mind, both stellar, so I'm happy to have more treats to nibble at.

review
quietlycuriouskate
post image
Pickpick

I enjoyed the talks and essays, and her writing journal, very much; my enjoyment of the book as a whole would have been greater had there been more of these and fewer book reviews. However, I might have felt differently about that if I were familiar with more of the books in question. (I did note a few to look up later.) The overall impression I've come away with is that I would have liked her as a person, as well as for her writing.

bnp LeGuin is one of my favorite authors 6y
53 likes1 comment
blurb
Leftcoastzen
post image

Not sure where this LeGuin quote is from but it was lovely and drawn on my local indies chalk board. Always feels great to celebrate reading.

quote
DrSabrinaMoldenReads
post image

Readers aren‘t viewers; they recognize their pleasure as different than being entertained...reading is active, an act of attention, of observed alertness...In its silence, a book is a challenge...It won‘t do the work for you. To read a story well is to follow it, to act it, to feel it, to become it. (This explains a lot of why since reading again, I do not enjoy TV.)

review
shanaqui
Pickpick

I've finished it and I miss her. I don't know what to say.

quote
vivastory
post image

quote
vivastory
post image

Moray_Reads Such a loss. At least the words are still here 😢 6y
56 likes1 stack add1 comment
blurb
shanaqui

I needed to spend some time with my friend Ursula, so I picked this up. I so enjoy the way she thought, the way she wrote. She will never stop being a gift.

I wrote a blog post about what she taught me about fear, and how to deal with it: https://breathesbooks.com/2018/01/24/turn-around/

llwheeler Lovely post ❤ 6y
Bklover That was beautiful! 6y
MCYmermaid 💔💔💔 6y
10 likes1 stack add3 comments
blurb
2BR02B
post image

Fuuuuuuuck

2BR02B I'd be more eloquent, but I'm having trouble seeing through the tears right now. 6y
AmyG Oh no 😪 6y
Ashley_Nicoletto I just bought one of her books for the first time this week. 6y
See All 12 Comments
2BR02B @Ashley_Nicoletto That's one of my favorite books. 💕 6y
Ashley_Nicoletto If you have others that you love I always enjoy recommendations. It looks like I've been missing out. 6y
vivastory @Ashley_Nicoletto This one was one of the best books I read last year 6y
tournevis 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 6y
REPollock Just gutted. 🌗🌘🌑 6y
amvs1111 Such a loss 6y
58 likes12 comments
blurb
LectricSheep
post image

Why fiction matters 🙌🏻 #praiseursula (thanks for the recommendation @River_Voice ❤️)

quietlycuriouskate You're welcome! 💚 6y
GlassAsDiamonds That sounds fantastic! Must read. 😊 6y
BarbaraTheBibliophage Hi! Did you get your #muglove box? Post office says it was delivered Tuesday but I didn‘t mark much outside. I thought you might be wondering if it was for the swap or not! 6y
Erinsuereads Would you mind if I reposted this??? It‘s fabulous. 6y
LectricSheep @ErinSueG go for it! So sad that she just died. 6y
71 likes1 stack add5 comments
blurb
DivaDiane
post image

1. Anything new by Ursula K LeGuin, Bloodline (kinda old, but I want it!).
2. Whatever, I‘m not too picky.
3.I‘d love to get my son and I a couple of funkos (StarWars). Otherwise, all of it.
4. Greens, Blues, Purples
5. Not real into the splatter.

60 likes1 comment
quote
quietlycuriouskate
post image

Here's Ursula K Le Guin again. (I promise not to post a quote from every page!)

LectricSheep Yes!!! I want to teach this in my course on “reading in a digital age” next semester— can I ask what section this quote is from? 6y
quietlycuriouskate @LectricSheep Excellent! This quote (and the one I posted yesterday) is from "The Operating Instructions". 6y
MiyakoBunny ❤️Everything about this! 6y
See All 6 Comments
youneverarrived Wow love this! So true 🧡 6y
LectricSheep Awesome thank you! 6y
batsy Yes! Love the point about being told something vs being sold something 🔥 6y
32 likes1 stack add6 comments
quote
quietlycuriouskate
post image

This one has been on my TBR stack for a while. (I keep forgetting about my Kindle books ?.)
Every time writing or art-making has to be "justified" as a transferable skill, of use in business, my heart sinks and I wonder how come I ended up here and now and not in a scriptorium in the Dark Ages.

batsy Same 😖 6y
41 likes1 stack add1 comment
blurb
SkeletonKey
post image

I've been hoarding books and not reading them again!! When you work in a library and have no late fines, this tends to happen. All these are going back tomorrow... unread. I'll add them to my to-read list and check them out responsibly like a person who doesn't want to stress themselves out.

#dnf #tbr #library #litsyloveslibraries #bookhoarding

DebbieGrillo It's a good thing I don't work in a library. I would do this too. 6y
SkeletonKey @DebbieGrillo - It's ridiculous, I need more self control, lol. 6y
DebbieGrillo That very statement could be said of much of my behaviour. 6y
See All 8 Comments
TricksyTails I would do the same! Actually, this pretty much looks like by library haul. They're just stacked going completely ignored. Every week I get more…to ignore! 🙈 6y
danibolahood I've recently rediscovered my local library and seem to be having the same problem. Every week my pile seems to get bigger and bigger. 6y
SkeletonKey @TricksyTails @danibolahood - I have another stack by the front door 😭 I need to clear some clutter and get myself on track again, lol! 6y
TricksyTails 😂 I'm thinking maybe just returning everything and then starting from zero. Then, maybe just borrow one per week. I mean, we haven't even discussed the piles all over the place that aren't library books but the ones we own! 6y
Erinsuereads At least you take them back. I would probably just completely forget to take them back and they would end up lost in piles with my normal books. That‘s too much freedom for me to handle 😂😂😂 6y
15 likes8 comments
quote
GoneFishing

The imagination is an essential tool of the mind, a fundamental way of thinking, an indispensable means of becoming and remaining human.

tpixie What is essential is invisible to the eye 7y
Kammbia1 Totally agree! 7y
Cathythoughts Yes, when I see imagination at work, in someone's eyes or deeds , this is something deeply human & moving 7y
31 likes2 stack adds3 comments
quote
GoneFishing

Fiction offers the best means of understanding people different from oneself, short of experience. Actually, fiction can be lots better than experience, because it's a manageable size, it's comprehensible, while experience just steamrollers over you and you understand what happened decades later, if ever.

Suet624 So true. 7y
31 likes1 stack add1 comment
quote
GoneFishing

A people that doesn't live at the center of the world, as defined and described by its poets and storytellers, is in a bad way. The center of the world is where you live fully, where you know how things are done, how things are done rightly, done well.

quote
GoneFishing

There seems to be a firewall in my mind against ideas expressed in numbers and graphs rather than words, or in abstract words such as Sin or Creativity. I just don‘t understand. And incomprehension is boredom.

Suet624 I understand this very well. 7y
16 likes1 comment
quote
GoneFishing

I think the imagination is the single most useful tool mankind possesses. It beats the opposable thumb. I can imagine living without my thumbs, but not without my imagination.

quote
GoneFishing

Realism is for lazy-minded, semi-educated people whose atrophied imagination allows them to appreciate only the most limited and convention subject matter. Re-Fi is a repetitive genre written by unimaginative hacks who rely on mere mimesis. If they had self-respect they'd be writing memoir, but they're too lazy to fact-check..Re-Fi is an incredibly narrow genre, completely centered on 1 species, full of worn-out cliches and predictable situations

15 likes1 stack add
quote
GoneFishing

In America the imagination is generally looked on as something that might be useful when the TV is out of order.

Suet624 😂😂😂 7y
23 likes1 comment
blurb
vivastory
post image

#bookmail
Opened at random & read the sentence "there are no bad genres, only bad books." This is going to be great!

saresmoore I've been eyeing this one—interested to hear how you like it! 7y
ValerieAndBooks That is so very true! Looking forward to your review on this one. 7y
81 likes3 stack adds2 comments
quote
Lauredhel
post image

This whole book is quotable.

minkyb Indeed. 7y
57 likes4 stack adds1 comment
quote
Lauredhel
post image

53 likes2 stack adds
blurb
Lauredhel
post image

Always my life when I'm trying to read. This time it's Mr Darcy. #catsoflitsy

DebinHawaii So sweet! 😆🐱❤️ 7y
Tanzy13 🐱 7y
SharonGoforth 😻😻 7y
Lcsmcat My Balthazar does that too! 7y
60 likes4 comments
quote
Lauredhel
post image

I'm sure Tolkien knew that The Secret Vice was masturbation. This amuses me.

Lauredhel @McShelfington he goes on to explain that such linguistic invention is "rational, not perverted". ?? 7y
50 likes1 stack add2 comments
blurb
Lauredhel
post image

Stuck on Ninefox Gambit, so I'm moving on to Le Guin.

62 likes2 stack adds
blurb
CoffeeK8
post image

So true, especially right now!

quote
Quellek
post image
quote
Baileythebookworm
post image

My goal for 2017 is to actually post on Litsy again, and specifically to record my Book Riot read harder challenge books. I'm starting off with Words Are My Matter, a book about books, because Le Guin will never steer you wrong.

CherylDeFranceschi True story. 7y
shawnmooney How lovely to see you back here! ❤❤ 7y
Baileythebookworm @shawnmooney Thank you! 😊 It's good to be back! 7y
17 likes1 stack add3 comments
review
bookwormmichelle
post image
Pickpick

Loved this, especially the first section of essays. LeGuin is one of those gifted souls who can do it all--fiction, poetry, essays.

quote
bookwormmichelle
post image

Yeah!!!!!!!!!

quote
bookwormmichelle
post image

quote
bookwormmichelle
post image

blurb
bookwormmichelle
post image

My current from-the-library stack.

blurb
BarbaraTheBibliophage
post image

My first @bookriot order! The tote will be busy starting tomorrow. I wish I could wear the shirt to work, but I have a uniform shirt. But it's on right after work! So excited! ❤️❤️❤️📚📚📚

84 likes2 stack adds