So Far So Good

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) was a celebrated author of twenty-one novels, eleven volumes of short stories, four collections of essays, twelve children’s books, six volumes of poetry and four of translation. The breadth and imagination of her work earned her six Nebulas, nine Hugos 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 joined the short list of authors to be published in their lifetimes by the Library of America.

Ursula K. Le Guin, loved by millions for her fantasy and science-fiction novels, ponders life, death and the vast beyond in So Far So Good, an astute, charming collection finished weeks before her death in January, 2018. Fans will recognize some of the motifs here – cats, wind, strong women – as well as her exploration of the intersection between soul and body, the knowable and the unknown. The writing is clear, artful and reverent as Le Guin looks back at key memories and concerns and looks forward to what is next: ‘Spirit, rehearse the journey of the body/ that are to come, the motions/ of the matter that held you.’ Washington PostLe Guin's farewell poetry collection contains all that created her reputation for fiction – sharp insight, restless imagination, humour that is both mordant and humane, and, above all else, that connection to all creation, that ‘immense what is’. New York Journal of BooksIt;s hard to think of another living author who has written so well for so long in so many styles as Ursula K. Le Guin. SalonShe never loses touch with her reverence for the immense what is. Margaret AtwoodThere is no writer with an imagination as forceful and delicate as Le Guin’s. Grace Paley