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4.22 AVERAGE
4.22 AVERAGE
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
A good book. Like all of Solnit's books, you come away from it knowing a lot more about a lot of different things than you did before, though none of those things is quite connected to what you would say the book is "about."
I was really hoping it would be more about her process and reflections on developing as a writer, but it was a bit more conclusory in this department than the jacket made it seem like it would be...
I was really hoping it would be more about her process and reflections on developing as a writer, but it was a bit more conclusory in this department than the jacket made it seem like it would be...
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
reflective
sad
fast-paced
“It was a feeling in the present that arose from a vision of a future, one with no way forward, from a conviction that what is terrible will always be terrible, that /now/ is a flat, featureless plain that goes on forever, with no forests relieving it, no mountains rising from it, no doorways inviting you out of it—the dread that nothing will change somehow coexists with the dread that something terrible is going to happen, that what is joyous cannot be trusted, and what is feared is lying in wait for you. If there's a gravity to this feeling, there's also a geography, that low place in the earth that we call a depression. It seemed to be made out of logic and a real assessment of the situation, but it was weather, and it would disperse like clouds, and gather again like clouds.”
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
reflective
medium-paced
This is my third Solnit book, and unfortunately I think I've discovered she's another author that falls into the "not for me" camp. I really want to love her writing, as I'm impressed with her activism and I can tell she's talented, for some reason it just doesn't click with me. This one is an interesting take on a memoir as it's set up as a series of vignettes and actually seems to contain very few personal details, it's all quite generalized. While I didn't hate that as a convention, it did make it harder to invest in the narrative and I did notice my mind wandering throughout. If you like a very literary style of writing, I would suggest giving Solnit a shot, as she does have great ideas and is a good writer, it's just not a style that works for me in nonfiction.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced