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rjsreadingnook's review against another edition
5.0
This is the first book I’ve read of Rebecca Solnit, but I want to get my hands on more of her work especially her essay “Men Explain Things to Me,” which inspired the coining of the term “mansplaining.”
This is a mesmerizing collection of essays that explore and meander through topics such as misogyny, domestic abuse, street harassment, intersectional feminism, coming of age in San Francisco, the influence of urban life, the influence of gay men, drag queens and queer culture. She also recounts her experiences with environmentalism.
Solnit is honest, open and frank, owning her past mistakes of overlooking Native Americans and their unheard cries of environmentalism.
Her writing style is captivating, and I found myself rereading passages especially the meta ones on writing, reading and researching.
Excellent collection, and I highly recommend it.
Thank you to Viking and Penguin Random House for the gifted copy.
This is a mesmerizing collection of essays that explore and meander through topics such as misogyny, domestic abuse, street harassment, intersectional feminism, coming of age in San Francisco, the influence of urban life, the influence of gay men, drag queens and queer culture. She also recounts her experiences with environmentalism.
Solnit is honest, open and frank, owning her past mistakes of overlooking Native Americans and their unheard cries of environmentalism.
Her writing style is captivating, and I found myself rereading passages especially the meta ones on writing, reading and researching.
Excellent collection, and I highly recommend it.
Thank you to Viking and Penguin Random House for the gifted copy.
terrypaulpearce's review against another edition
5.0
Probably the best autobiographical work I've ever read. Just so thought-provoking: she makes me see the world in different ways.
And her audiobook narration is fabulous. I'm now going to go and read everything she's written.
And her audiobook narration is fabulous. I'm now going to go and read everything she's written.
aqilahreads's review against another edition
2.0
full of short vignettes; this is not a typical kind of memoir where it would share more on the author's life but more of on a feminist evolution.
felt that it started off well but i just couldnt get into it on several parts - things started to be a lil messy but i guess the book is meant to be read as stand alone essays. no doubt that it was written oh so beautifully though but expected more coming from a memoir. felt that theres something missing...wished it has more stories especially on the author's background & experiences.
felt that it started off well but i just couldnt get into it on several parts - things started to be a lil messy but i guess the book is meant to be read as stand alone essays. no doubt that it was written oh so beautifully though but expected more coming from a memoir. felt that theres something missing...wished it has more stories especially on the author's background & experiences.
meghan111's review against another edition
4.0
What do you need to have a voice in the world? How do you have a voice in politics, your personal life, professionally, when you talk about what you experience in the world? This book articulates it well:
Audibility - people listen when you speak or write.
Credibility - people believe your experiences happened. people believe your expertise.
Consequence - your words don't disappear into a void. you have efficacy.
"In some parts of the world, a wife is still property under the law, and others choose her husband. To be a person of no consequence, to speak without power, is a bewilderingly awful condition, as though you were a ghost, a beast, as though words died in your mouth, as though sound no longer traveled. It is almost worst to say something and have it not matter than to be silenced."
Audibility - people listen when you speak or write.
Credibility - people believe your experiences happened. people believe your expertise.
Consequence - your words don't disappear into a void. you have efficacy.
"In some parts of the world, a wife is still property under the law, and others choose her husband. To be a person of no consequence, to speak without power, is a bewilderingly awful condition, as though you were a ghost, a beast, as though words died in your mouth, as though sound no longer traveled. It is almost worst to say something and have it not matter than to be silenced."
mmardybum's review against another edition
yall should always listen to the stars.
what is armor after all but a cage that moves with you.
also,
what is armor after all but a cage that moves with you.
also,
Spoiler
things are one way, then another. and the transitions are hard to mark. the present becomes the past through increments too small to measure. suddenly something that is, becomes something that was, and the way we live is not the way we lived.Spoiler
you dont really know what you do when you write, because it depends on how people read.arielamandah's review against another edition
4.0
Recollections of My Non-Existence was a masterful memoir, threading many of the themes from her many other books throughout its pages. I find so much of what Solnit writes here deeply relatable. Her stories of being a young woman, on her own, living in the world, battling back fear. Of the physical threat’s immediacy fading, only to be replaced by disrespect and disregard. Of the beauty and the frustration of “nonexistence.” Yes, yes, yes. She poses so many buried questions, deeply-felt aggravations, and brushed-off sleights making them feel stingingly new. As she says about the tale-tellers of certain crimes and traumas: they will keep telling their story again and again until they feel heard... hearing Solnit describe these anxieties and fears and angers makes ME feel seen and heard - even though I’m not the one telling the story.
tensy's review against another edition
5.0
An exquisitely written memoir of the author as a young woman coming into her own voice as a writer in 1980's San Francisco. The chapter on her love of books, and their influence, was a reflection of my own emotions. Passages about writing could be used as a primer in college writing courses. However, the main theme of this memoir is how the world tends to treat young (and old) women as nonexistent. Her words and experiences are an example of how to find the courage to rely on your own inner voice and to learn use it.
Favorite quotes:
--Being human can mean many things.
--You should be with people who are like you, who are facing what you're facing, who dream your dreams and fight your battles, who recognize you. An then, other times, you should be like people unlike yourself. Because there is a problem as well with those who spend too little time being anyone else; it stunts the imagination in which empathy takes root, that empathy that is a capacity to shape-shift and roam out of your sole self.
--You learn to think of what you are in terms of what they want, and addressing their want becomes so ingrained in you that you lose sight of what you want, and sometimes you vanish to yourself in the art of appearing to and for others.
--I wanted English to be an instrument on which many kinds of music could be played.
--It's not you, it's patriarchy. [I suggest you read her essay "Men Explain Things To Me."]
--to make work that is so deeply absorbed that it ceases to be what people see and becomes how they see.
Favorite quotes:
--Being human can mean many things.
--You should be with people who are like you, who are facing what you're facing, who dream your dreams and fight your battles, who recognize you. An then, other times, you should be like people unlike yourself. Because there is a problem as well with those who spend too little time being anyone else; it stunts the imagination in which empathy takes root, that empathy that is a capacity to shape-shift and roam out of your sole self.
--You learn to think of what you are in terms of what they want, and addressing their want becomes so ingrained in you that you lose sight of what you want, and sometimes you vanish to yourself in the art of appearing to and for others.
--I wanted English to be an instrument on which many kinds of music could be played.
--It's not you, it's patriarchy. [I suggest you read her essay "Men Explain Things To Me."]
--to make work that is so deeply absorbed that it ceases to be what people see and becomes how they see.
junevonjune's review against another edition
5.0
One of the most meaningful books I’ve read this year, one I will return to.
txelloni's review against another edition
5.0
És la primera vegada que llegeixo la Rebecca Solnit, no sé si en altres assajos seus trobaré aquests moments d'intensa connexió amb ella. M'ha semblat una veu forta, de feminista del segle XXI, de les que saben què arroseguem i què ens trobem, de les que aprens perquè trobes que t'entén molt bé. De les que vols al teu costat. De les que vols d'amiga i de guia, tant per conversar com per escoltar-la durant hores (un no-parar de subratllar, ja ho adverteixo).