Ursula K Le Guin

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1. defrostOct 2026
   My grandchildren (ages 10 - 13) have been recently given and are apparently somewhat attached to

   The Mouse and His Child - Russell Hoban

   A Wizard of Earthsea: A Graphic Novel - Ursula K. Le Guin, Fred Fordham

   The SAS Survival Handbook - Lofty Wiseman

   They more or less all cover the search for being self winding.

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2. wise_bloodSep 2026
   20 years ago I read a The Guardian article about the "top geek novels". I immediately read a bunch of those.

   Recently I managed to find the list again, and it's been endless pleasure:

   - American Gods -- Neil Gaiman

   - Brave New World -- Aldous Huxley

   - The Colour of Magic -- Terry Pratchett

   - Consider Phlebas -- Iain M Banks

   - Cryptonomicon -- Neal Stephenson

   - Cloud Atlas -- David Mitchell

   - The Diamond Age -- Neal Stephenson

   - The Dispossessed -- Ursula K Le Guin

   - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? -- Philip Dick

   - Dune -- Frank Herbert

   - Foundation -- Isaac Asimov

   - Giles Goat-Boy -- John Barth

   - Gravity's Rainbow -- Thomas Pynchon

   - The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams

   - I, Robot -- Isaac Asimov

   - The Illuminatus! Trilogy -- Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson

   - The Left Hand of Darkness -- Ursula K Le Guin

   - The Man in the High Castle -- Philip K Dick

   - Microserfs -- Douglas Coupland

   - Neuromancer -- William Gibson

   - Nineteen Eighty-Four -- George Orwell

   - Orlando -- Virgina Woolf

   - The Shockwave Rider -- John Brunner

   - Snow Crash -- Neal Stephenson

   - Stand on Zanzibar -- John Brunner

   - Stranger in a Strange Land -- Robert Heinlein

   - Trouble with lichen - John Wyndham

   - UBIK -- Philip Dick

   - Watchmen -- Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

   - Woman on the Edge of Time -- Marge Piercy

   (I am creatively interpreting "The Colour of Magic" as "all Discworld", "Dune" as "the six Dune books", etc.)

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3. jdw64Jun 2026
   Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching (Translated Ursula K. Le Guin) The Way of Lao Tzu (Wing-tsit Chan)
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4. jacquesmFeb 2026
   Everybody that I know that reads SF has their own favorite Ursula K. Le Guin story. I have a hard time because I have two. 'The Lathe of Heaven' and 'The Left Hand of Darkness'.
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5. roxolotlJan 2026
   This is wonderful. Ursula K. Le Guin is a great thinker and I’d highly recommend her novels. I’ve read Ken Liu’s, who many here probably know at least from translating The Three Body Problem and Death’s End, Tao Te Ching and it was remarkably poetic. Excited to read another person’s interpretation.
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6. TheAceOfHeartsDec 2025
   I was recently reading through Ursula K. Le Guin's The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction, and she has so many great quotes that are directly relevant to this situation.

   Here's a shorter one:

   > “The use of imaginative fiction is to deepen your understanding of your world, and your fellow men, and your own feelings, and your destiny.”

   And a longer one:

   > “We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel – or have done and thought and felt; or might do and think and feel – is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become… A person who had never listened to nor read a tale or myth or parable or story, would remain ignorant of his own emotional and spiritual heights and depths, would not know quite fully what it is to be human. For the story – from Rumpelstiltskin to War and Peace – is one of the basic tools invented by the mind of man, for the purpose of gaining understanding. There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.”

   Engaging with fantasy and scifi helps us understand ourselves and the world around us. It helps find what truly moves and inspires us. It teaches us to dream of a different, better world.

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