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    The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination
    The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination
    The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination

    Written by Ursula K. Le Guin

    Narrated by Christina Moore

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Join Ursula K. Le Guin as she explores a broad array of subjects, ranging from Tolstoy, Twain, and Tolkien to women's shoes, beauty, and family life. With her customary wit, intelligence, and literary craftsmanship, she offers a diverse and highly engaging set of readings. The Wave in the Mind includes some of Le Guin's finest literary criticism, rare autobiographical writings, performance art pieces, and, most centrally, her reflections on the arts of writing and reading.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJul 20, 2018
    ISBN9781980007661
    The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination
    Author

    Ursula K. Le Guin

    Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (1929-2018) was a celebrated author whose body of work includes twenty-three novels, twelve volumes of short stories, eleven volumes of poetry, thirteen children’s books, five essay collections, and four works of translation. The breadth and imagination of her work earned her six Nebula Awards, seven Hugo Awards, and SFWA’s Grand Master, along with the PEN/Malamud and many other awards. In 2014 she was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and in 2016 she joined the short list of authors to be published in their lifetimes by the Library of America.

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    Reviews for The Wave in the Mind

    4/5

    106 ratings8 reviews

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    • 5/5
      An absolutely fascinating and brilliant listen. The kind you want to repeat a few times for all the gems.
    • 5/5
      Thoughts of a great writer, with deep love of what she did. Excellent narration by Christina Moore.
    • 5/5
      Fascinating and engaging; insightful and inspired; expressed beautifully by the narrator.
    • 3/5
      From what I remember, Ursula K. LeGuin's collection of essays Dancing at the Edge of the World included a fascinating collection of insights about writing, life, etc. It was where I first learned that LeGuin was the daughter of the anthropologist involved with Ishi. (Look it up. Read the book Ishi in Two Worlds. You won't be disappointed.) And it was where I was first introduced to LeGuin's non-fiction/essays.It was that memory that sent me to buy this book as soon as I knew it existed.And, unless my memory is playing false with me, this collection just isn't quite so good.Don't get me wrong – there is much to recommend in this book. Going right to that whole "Ishi" thing (and my first degree was in anthropology, so why shouldn't I) there is a very nice piece called "Indian Uncles" which uses Ishi as a springboard (she disappoints her listeners by explaining she has no memories of Ishi because he died before she was born) to talk about the other native Americans introduced to her through her father's work as an anthropologist. It is skilled in that it speaks about the times, about people in general, and about LeGuin in particular. That is what good writing should do.And that quality of writing is evident throughout the book in that her explorations of herself, literature, writing, and other general topics speaks about more than just those topics.I think my problem is that many of these writings came across as rambling rather than focused. This may be because so many are lectures adapted to essay or, potentially more problematic, various writings and musings (many never published before) that have been adapted and cobbled together to provide the content.In general, there is a little too much repetition and a little too little focus.However, I should add that the book succeeds in relation to another one of measures of a books success – the number of dog-eared pages. There are enough of these pages that it is quickly obvious I found material I wanted to remember.Again, it is not that this is a bad book, it is just not as good as I recall the previous book being. Unfair to hold a book up against the memory of a book? Perhaps. But whether that memory drove my final assessment or not, I just didn't find this book as engaging as I thought it would. And therein lies the ultimate problem.
    • 4/5
      This was SO wonderful. Le Guin writing about all sorts of things. Amusing, insightful, thought-provoking.
    • 5/5
      I am a fan of Ursula Le Guin - both her fiction and non-fiction works. This is a great book her essays on a variety of topics. Easy to pick up and read any of them. They are uniformly absorbing and thought provoking.
    • 5/5
      At Helen's insistence, I reread this wonderful collection of essays by the master. Her essay about the vast majority of writing awards going to men is infuriating; the title essay about the wave of creativity is extremely valuable.
    • 4/5
      A collection of essays, mostly brief, on a wide variety of subjects, mostly those we've come to associate with LeGuin: writing, reading, women, aging. Some deeper looks into the importance of rhythm in writing are fascinating, as are her thoughts on trusting your material, interacting with the reader, and liposuction. The topics are more scattered than in The Language of the Night, and not as specific to the fantasy genre, reflecting LeGuin's interest in a wider range of ideas.