She talks about the uses of anger and about how corrosive it can be when it's used improperly. She ponders things like questions from the alumni association at Radcliffe, and the meaning of 'spare time' to a writer. She writes tenderly and hilariously about her cat, Pard. They're informed by a love for life, and for the creatures she shared the world with, humans included. Less personal, you say? Okay then I'd say Le Guin's insights on life are informed by a lifetime of observation of the deepest sort. And yes, that's a really, really personal response, as was my occasional urge to go down on one knee and propose to her because she was one of those people you wanted in your life, not just as a name on the spine of a book, but as someone you could hang out with, laugh with, talk about the important things in life with. I was not prepared to have my heart break again and again as I realized that this amazing creature was no longer with us.

I was not prepared to laugh, to mourn, to face hard truths, and to fall head-over-heels in love with the woman. Before she died in January of this year, she published a collection of her blog posts from the last few years, and I'd wanted to read it not just because I enjoyed her fiction but because there's something appealing to me, as I approach the end of my life, about the thoughts of those who have gone on before. It was, for me anyway, what science fiction should be, human first of all. I loved what she said and how she said it.

(h/t to Tom Hoberg for making SF a legitimate subject of study all those decades ago.) I loved her work right from the start. I've been a LeGuin reader for decades, having first encountered her in school, in a Science Fiction as Literature class. On breakfast: 'Eating an egg from the shell takes not only practice, but resolution, even courage, possibly willingness to commit crime.'Īnd 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. He just doesn't accept the lap hypothesis.' On her new cat: 'He still won't sit on a lap. On cultural perceptions of fantasy: 'The direction of escape is toward freedom.

On the absurdity of denying your age, she says, 'If I'm 90 and believe I'm 45, I'm headed for a very bad time trying to get out of the bathtub.'

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. 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. Le Guin has taken listeners to imaginary worlds for decades. Le Guin, and with an introduction by Karen Joy Fowler, a collection of thoughts - always adroit, often acerbic - on aging, belief, the state of literature, and the state of the nation.

Le guin no time to spare