Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places - Softcover

Le Guin, Ursula K.; LeGuin, Ursula K.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060972890 ISBN 13: 9780060972899

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1990

Synopsis

The celebrated author offers her thoughts on a broad range of subjects, including literary criticism, the state of science fiction writing today, and government and governmental policies

About this title

From the Publisher:

"Insightful, impassioned, sometimes lyrical, often funny . . . a trove of delights."--Los Angeles Times Book Review. "Eloquent, elegant . . . funny, sharp . . . provocative."--Washington Post

Review:

This collection of lucid, witty, warm, and intelligent "talks, essays, occasional pieces and reviews" was written with the goal "to subvert as much as possible without hurting anybody's feelings" on matters about which she says "I think I ought to stand up and be counted, lest silence collude with injustice." Her subjects, which she categorizes (and even codes for the reader) as Feminism, Social Responsibility, Literature, and Travel, offer astute observations on a variety of timely topics. What do women recently graduated from college need to know? Where do ideas come from? What are the prospects for women in writing? "No matter how successful, beloved, influential her work was, when a woman author dies, nine times out of ten, she gets dropped from the lists, the courses, the anthologies, while the men get kept... If she had the nerve to have children, her chances of getting dropped are higher still... So if you want your writing to be taken seriously, don't marry and have kids, and above all, don't die. But if you have to die, commit suicide. They approve of that." This collection offers both nutritious food for thought and excellent examples of a variety of writing styles: well-researched essays, whimsical and imaginative anecdotes, reflective personal memory. It is spiced to perfection with Ursula LeGuin's great sense of humor through which she takes herself and her subject matter just seriously enough. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. -- From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Jesse Larsen

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0060972890
• ISBN 13: 9780060972899
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320