Welcome to Litsy!

I read a lot of good things in January 2024 but I think this is the one that will stay with me the longest. Only the third book I have read from LeGuin, but it‘s my kind of science fiction because it makes me think hard about the past, present and future and provides different ways of looking at the world.

#12Booksof24

The character development, the maintenance of the flow despite the time jumps…I am once again in love with LeGuin‘s ability to note the intricacies of that period, and I absolutely loved it. It reminded me of how 1984 was apparently banned in both the US and the USSR for spreading counter ideologies. This is definitely a book to be read over and over again and find new details, nuanced you probably missed the previous read.

“He could not force himself to understand how banks functionaled and so forth, because all the operations of capitalism were as meaningless to him as the rites of a primitive religion, as barbaric, as elaboratr, and as unnecessary. In a human sacrifice to deity there might be at least a mistskrn and terrible beauty; in the rites of moneychangers, where greed, laziness and envy were assumed to move all men‘s acts, even the terrible became banal.”

“The rest of us keep pretending we‘re happy or else just go numb. We suffer, but not enough. And so we suffer for nothing.”

16/150 I FINALLY finished January's #ClassicLSFBC selection. I'm not sure if the book was too high brow for my low brow tastes, but I found a great deal of the book mind numbingly boring. I didn't like Shevek as a character, he was cold, aloof and more interested in his physics theorems than in other people. I don't think I'd want to live on Anarres or Urras, they both were unpleasant places for different reasons. I'm probably missing ⬇️⬇️

Physicist Shevek has traveled to a new planet to develop a theory that would revolutionize the universe. He then finds himself embroiled in a civil war.

Le Guin‘s world building always astounds me. & the politics! So complex & flawed! Also loved the discussions of community, what we owe to the people around us, & morals. But I forget that sometimes her sci-fi gets a little dry for me. I need to read the rest of this series though. 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑

I read this book years ago and I remember feeling lukewarm about it back then. This time I couldn't even finish it. It was very slow and had a lot of political undertones. DNF at around 30%.

#ClassLSFBC @Ruthiella

Question Two: The subtitle of the novel is “An Ambiguous Utopia”. What does that mean to you now after having read the book?

Follow up-would you rather live on Urras or Annares?

I‘ll post a couple of questions, even though I‘m not sure how many people actually read the January pick. 😂

Question One: Le Guin chose to have a male protagonist. In what ways, however, did you find this to be a feminist novel, if at all?

Side note- did you like Shevek as a hero/protagonist?

4 ⭐️s
The beginning is a bit slow but boy that second half of the book flies by! I‘m much more used to action-packed sci-fi, so I wasn‘t expecting something so philosophical. But I loved it. The themes this book touches on are extremely relevant today. There were times I disliked Shevek, but overall I think he‘s a character that will rattle around comfortably in my brain for a long time. I‘m definitely hooked on this author now! ❤️
#ClassicLSFBC

1. Working after being off for a 3 day weekend. Looking forward to getting my new glasses so I'm not half blind.
2. The Dispossessed and The Mysterious Case of Rudolph Diesel
3. Sarcastic, Introverted
Thanks for the tag @TheSpineView
#motivationalmonday @cupcake12

My copy finally came in from the other library to mine! Let‘s see if I can get it read before February. 😅
#ClassicLSFBC

This novel felt a little dated and had long passages of political theory that I didn't completely absorb, but otherwise, it was an excellent story contrasting two worlds that differed greatly in geography, social norms and political structure.

It gave me lots to thin about and I'm looking forward to the #ClassicLSFBC discussion. @RamsFan1963

#ClassicSciFiBookClub

Currently reading this for the book club.

Read for #ClassicLSFBC

The second novel that I‘ve now read from Le Guin‘s loosely connected Hainish Cycle. A thought experiment about what a pure anarchic culture might look like - pros & cons.

I love how this made me ponder about my culture and its benefits and limitations.

Shevek is a brilliant physicist from the splinter world of Annaraes where his brilliance is stifled but will he fare any better on the capitalist sister world of Urras?

I started this today for #ClassicLSFBC and #SeriesLove2024. I‘ve listened to about a quarter of the book and it leaves me cold. I read some trilogy or other by Ursula K. LeGuin in the 1970s, I think in high school. I don‘t know why I read the whole trilogy except that I hadn‘t yet learned the freedom of bailing on a book. So when this book was chosen for #ClassicSFBC I chalked my previous experience with the author to my immaturity, (cont)⬇️

Starting 2024 with The Dispossessed for #ClassicLSFBC. I have just discovered that it is part of a series, The Hainish Cycle, so I also am listening to it for #SeriesLove2024. Woo-hoo! Two birds with one stone.

Since there were no extra votes to break the 3 way tie, I chose option B. I flipped a coin. #ClassicLSFBC selection for January is The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin.
@Bookwomble @Ruthiella @TheSpineView @BookmarkTavern @wanderinglynn @Readergrrl @Johanna414 @Lizpixie @BookBelle84 @Larkken @julesG @Deblovestoread @majkia @LeticiaToraci @sebrittainclark @kwmg40 @CatLass007 @BookwormAHN @CSeydel @ravenlee @bnp @PaperbackPirate

Any other Littens on Substack? I‘m at Kirsten‘s Kitchen Table!

I don‘t tend to read a lot of science fiction, so although I enjoyed this, it‘s not something I would generally choose on my own. Following the life of the main character Shevek in his present and through flashbacks to his past, it describes life in two very different political worlds on two different planets. I thought Le Guin did an amazing job of clearly describing the good and bad of both societies.

#AuthorAMonth #1001books #audiobook

Hello, June! I‘ll be doing some traveling for work this month, so my kindle is already all loaded up with #aam, #sundaybuddyread, one of the #camplitsy reads, and #roll100 picks 🥰

I can‘t decide if I want to read the tagged for #AuthoraMonth, or if I want to go in the suggested order for the Hainish Cycle and start with Rocannon‘s World… UKLG says there are only loose connection among the books, and I own the tagged novel, sooo…

#June #Bookspin @TheAromaofBooks

Trying to read a few books from my shelves before I buy anything new... let's see how long I can last. This one is proving a strong read so far - we've got communism, captilism, political manoeuvring, a bit of a love story, some physics. It's all going on. Only my second Le Guin (after The Lathe of Heaven, which I really liked).

If you want a damn good story with plenty to think about, Ursula Le Guin is a great choice.
Here are two companion worlds, one much like the contemporary West (declared a paradise by the Terran ambassador, whose Earth was wrecked by our current dominant culture) and the other a breakaway non-authoritarian communist society. Shevek is the scientist caught between them: regardless of ideology, people go on being the best and worst of themselves.

Keeping cozy tonight with a couple of cats and a new book. It‘s my first foray into Ursula K. Le Guin and I‘m very excited. #lennox #huey #catsoflitsy

📖 The Dispossessed
✍️ Lord Dunsany
📺 Doctor Who
🧑‍🎤 David Bowie
🎶 Dream On (Aerosmith), Don't Fear the Reaper (Blue Öyster Cult)

#ManicMonday #LetterD @CBee

Woo hoo! I made a lot of good progress in March & even got a bingo! My second this year! Hoping I can get another bingo in April! #BookSpinBingo

@TheAromaofBooks

"I used to want so badly to be different. I wonder why?"
"There's a point, around the age of twenty," Bedap said, "when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities."
"Or at least accept them with resignation," said Shevek.

"A body-profiteer," Takver called women who used their sexuality as a weapon in a power-struggle with men. To look at her, Vea was the body-profiteer to end them all. (...) She was so elaborately and ostentatiously a female body that she seemed scarcely to be a human being.

"You can't crush ideas by suppressing them. You can only crush them by ignoring them. By refusing to think - refusing to change."

"But what," Oiie said abruptly, as if the question, long kept back, burst from him under pressure- "What keeps people in order? Why don't they rob and murder each other?"
"Nobody owns anything to rob. If you want things you take them from the depository. As for violence, well, I don't know, Oiie; would you murder me, ordinarily? And if you felt like it, would a law against it stop you? Coercion is the least efficient means of obtaining order."

'There were walls around all his thoughts, and he seemed utterly unaware of them though he was perpetually hiding behind them.'

The idea is like grass. It craves light, likes crowds, thrives on cross breeding, grows better for being stepped on.💡

Today‘s moment of serendipity. The Data Detective was describing how statistics are often presented with too limited information for you to understand context and therefore usefulness.
At the same time, Shevek & friends were discussing whether the other world they see from afar could be different than what they are told in history classes. Not that anyone is lying but only that they know only what they‘ve been told, which could be outdated.

New book for my #tbr. Found through this list:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/alliehayes/books-that-changed-lives-reddit

"If you've ever wondered how to reconcile a desire for freedom and a desire to support the common good, look no further."

An author I haven‘t read yet and really should have.

I didn't love this the way I loved The Left Hand of Darkness but that doesn't mean it isn't brilliant. Le Guin mixes complex philosophical and political ideas with theoretical physics and phenomenal writing to create another story that ultimately asks what makes us human #bookspin @TheAromaofBooks

second book of the year takes its place as one of, if not my favorite novel of all time 🙂 there are such strong flashes of benjamin in this story — the overcoming of empty, homogenous time; the messianic revolutionary figure; the pursuit of tikkun olam/olamot — that i wonder if his work was a source of inspiration for le guin?

This novel is classic science fiction at its best. It checks all the boxes: great world building, interesting characters, fascinating social commentary, two concurrent plots that never lag or get boring, and on and on. The technology may have seemed advanced when this was written in the mid-1970s but we've since passed most of what is portrayed. I stayed up past my bedtime often to read this, it was hard to put down.

Barely a pick. Just finished this one for a virtual book club that I host for some IRL friends. This book has won ALL the awards and I am very well versed in anarchist philosophy but the book barely moved my interest meter. Plenty worth discussing for a book club so that's a win, but it's just a very lukewarm entertainment experience.

Shavek, a physicist working on a grand unified theory of time, leaves the anarcho-socialist not-quite utopia of Anarres for the “propertarian“, “archist“ societies of its sister planet Urras hoping to find a more intellectually stimulating environment so that he can complete his work and to act as a bridge between the Anarresti and their Urrasti origins in order to continue the revolution. 👎

#sunlightwellness

“Dead anarchists make martyrs, you know, and keep living for centuries. But absent ones can be forgotten.”