No Straight Road Takes You There: Essays for Uneven Terrain

by Rebecca Solnit

This book's title, No Straight Road Takes You There, is an evocation and a declaration. Highways tend to be built across the easy routes and flat places, or the landscape is cleared away - logged, graded, levelled, tunnelled through - but to stick to these roads is to miss what else is out there. In her writing and activism, Rebecca Solnit has sought the pathless places in order to celebrate indirect and unpredictable consequences, and to embrace slowness and imperfection, which, she argues, are key to understanding the possibilities of change.

In her latest essay collection, the award-winning writer explores responses to the climate crisis, as well as reflections on women's rights, the fight for democracy, the trends in masculinity, and the rise of the far right in the West. Incantatory and poetic, positive and engaging, these essays argue for the long-term view and the power of collective action, making a case for seeding change wherever possible, and offering us all a path out of the wilderness.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Feminism, Politics, Philosophy, Psychology, Climate Change

171 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 13, 2025

About the author

Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of more than twenty books on feminism, western and indigenous history, popular power, social change and insurrection, wandering  and walking, hope and disaster, including Call Them By Their True Names (Winner of the 2018 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction), Cinderella Liberator, Men Explain Things to Me, The Mother of All Questions, and Hope in the Dark, and co-creator of the City of Women map, all published by Haymarket Books; a trilogy of atlases of American cities, The Faraway Nearby, A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Wanderlust: A History of Walking, and River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West (for which she received a Guggenheim, the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism, and the Lannan Literary Award). Her forthcoming memoir, Recollections of My Nonexistence, is scheduled to release in March, 2020. A product of the California public education system from kindergarten to graduate school, she is a columnist at the Guardian and a regular contributor to Literary Hub.

Reviews

[Dee (in the Desert) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like & admire R. Solnit quite a lot - this latest release, an essay collection, covers a lot of issues - climate, politics and our dying & crazy world, which moves so, so fast that some of it already felt dated, even though written quite recently. A quick & yet immersive read

[Edie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rebecca Solnit has had an enormous impact on the way I see and understand the world. Her books have shaped the way I think, given me language for things I felt but did not know how to express. This latest collection of essays is everything I thought - and hoped - it would be. She dissects our current situation and provides thoughtful, compassionate, and most importantly, hopeful commentary. Look, I am the first to admit this is not an unbiased review. I am a huge fan. But there is a reason I am such a fan. Solnit has a way of examining and describing the world which acknowledges all the awfulness but leaves room for wonder and joy too. Thank you to the author, Haymarket Books, and NetGalley for the eARC.

[Shae Wiedermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found myself having to pause after each chapter to reflect on her words, some even bringing me to tears. This book really connected so well to everything I’ve been thinking and feeling lately. What a beautiful way to bring a little bit of hope back into our broken world.

[Richard Derus · Rating 4.25 out of 5]

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: In thespirit of her bestselling book Hope in the Dark, Rebecca Solnit explores how our actions can shape the future and the liberatory possibilities of embracing uncertainty.

Beginning with an essay about a three-hundred-year-old violin and what it can tell us about forests, abundance, and climate, and ending with on about a prisoner dreaming of seeing the ocean, No Straight Road Takes You There deftly bridges the political and the literary, offering unique insights, nuanced understanding, and inspiration for the challenging work ahead. In her latest essay collection, the award-winning author explores climate change, feminism, democracy, hope, and power and its abuse. Throughout she asks us to heed the stories we tell or have been told, and the ways those stories can be, or should be changed. Solnit offers a reappraisal of the value of indirect consequences, an embrace of unpredictability, slowness, and imperfection in the politics of how to change the world.

"I've tried to find other ways of seeing and to prize the migratory routes ideas take," Solnit writes in the introduction, "the way that hope is most often grounded in memory, because you can't see the future but you can understand the patterns and possibilities if you know the past."

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I really don't know how better to say what this collection reveals to the reader than: "...the future is not as it is so often spoken of—as a place that already exists, toward which we are trudging—but as a place that we are creating with what we do and how we do it (or don't) in the present.
... Hope is that recognition and a commitment to the pursuit of the better possibilities within the spaciousness of the unknown, the not yet created." And there it is.

What Author Solnit does is always to present the case there is hope in a world presented to us by our media of informing and advising us as ever more hopeless, ever darker, a hellscape...and we bu it then despair of it being fixable. Despair immobilizes you. Sit quiet, no TV/internet noise, and observe the people around you. In the moments of life in the majority of the world where they are, people are carrying on being fathers and mothers and teachers and firemen and everything beyond...there is reason for hope in that, there are not roving gangs of armed bandits in the streets of New York or Peoria or Dallas.

Unhook yourself from believing news is The Truth, instead of the curated opinions that create profits by engaging you in a doom spiral that it, by design, is. Author Solnit will focus your attention on what work needs doing, to fix or repair the very real issues, problems, and do it without ignoring or sugarcoating the real, serious issues...climate change, official corruption...that exist.

It's the US midterm election today. No matter what happens in these elections, tomorrow's work will still need doing on every front from every last one of us, political agnostics/refusenuks or not. Feeding the hungry, cleaning the streets, the waterways, all of it still needs doing whoever happens to be in power.

Reading this book will remind you of what, and why, it's necessary to give your planet and your world the help and effort it needs, and you can give.

[Tanya · Rating 4 out of 5]

I took my sweet time with Solnit's newest collection of acutely timely essays, not because it isn't good, but because in the current state of the world, I wanted—needed—to space these small injections of hope out for as long as I could.

No Straight Road Takes You There begins with an essay about a three-hundred-year-old violin, and ends with one about a prisoner with a dream of seeing the ocean and visiting his mother's grave. A large variety of topics are covered in between, but the one Solnit returns to time and again is the climate crisis: At a time when every news headline feeds the vision of a bleak, uncertain future, Solnit is an optimistic realist, and makes a case for the fact that uncertainty holds potential; that not all is yet lost; that it's worth to dream of and fight for a better world.

"...the future is not as it is so often spoken of—as a place that already exists, toward which we are trudging—but as a place that we are creating with what we do and how we do it (or don't) in the present. (...) Hope is that recognition and a commitment to the pursuit of the better possibilities within the spaciousness of the unknown, the not yet created."

The thread connecting these essays is Solnit's plea to stop, zoom out, and look at the bigger picture, especially when things seem hopeless. Change is the only constant, but more often than not, it isn't one big event; it happens slowly, incrementally, and is often only noticeable when we take a moment to look back at where we started out.

"Even when the rock's at the bottom of the pool, the ripples are still spreading."

As ever, Solnit’s writing is engaging and accessible with flashes of poetic beauty, and her commentary sharp, nuanced, and compassionate; she has a uniquely refreshing way of acknowledging all the ways in which the world sucks, while also leaving room for hope, reminding us of how far we have come, and how much further we can go—challenging work lies ahead, but not impossible work. In these bleak times, that's a comforting, inspiring thought.

—————

Note: I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Eliana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rebecca es siempre increíble pero estos ensayos son muy muy necesarios: habla de la derecha, de la pérdida del sentido de comunidad, del cambio climático.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always find Solnit's essays a pleasurable combination of grounding and invigorating. No Straight Road Takes You There: Essays for Uneven Terrain includes pieces written between 2020 to 2025, discussing the COVID-19 pandemic, US presidential elections, climate change, abortion rights, and Silicon Valley, among other topics. The essay are grouped into three sections, essentially by mood. The first section is sanguine, the second angry, and the third hopeful. To be fair, they're all hopeful as Solnit particularly excels at constructive hope. Placing the angry essays in the middle section was clever nonetheless, as they are powerful but not a soothing note to begin or conclude on. In addition to admiring Solnit's writing, I also appreciate how deftly this collection is arranged.

One of my favourite essays in the collection was 'Despair is a luxury', in which Solnit builds further upon the ideas of Hope in the Dark: The Untold History of People Power:

If you do not take the long view, take time in large increments, you cannot see how campaigns build, how beliefs change, how what was once thought impossible or outlandish comes to be the status quo, and how the last half century has been an extraordinary period of change for society, beliefs, and values. Today may seem the same as yesterday, but this decade is profoundly different than the last, so you must take your measurements in large increments.

I thought this was an excellent articulation of why despair is so unhelpful:

They seemed to see despair as a form of solidarity and hope as a betrayal. Underneath this was, as far as I could tell, the assumption that whatever cause was in question was doomed, so we could start mourning right away.
But you shouldn't mourn those who aren't dead. Doing so stuffs the living into coffins, at the very least in your imagination. [...]
For those of us whose lives are already easy, giving up means making those lives even easier, at least in terms of effort. For the directly impacted, giving up means surrendering to devastation. Giving up on their behalf is not solidarity. And I doubt that anyone in desperate straits has ever taken comfort in the idea that somewhere far safer, people are bitter and despondent on their behalf or have decided they are doomed.

'Changing the climate story' was another highlight. This essay makes a simple yet profound point about responsibility:

By saying, 'we are all responsible,' we avoid the fact that the global majority of us don't need to change much, but a minority needs to change a lot. This is also a reminder that the idea that we need to renounce our luxuries and live more simply doesn't really apply to the majority of human beings outside what we could perhaps call the overdeveloped world. What is true of Beverly Hills is not true of the majority from Bangladesh to Bolivia.

I always find Solnit's work rewarding to read and No Straight Road Takes You There: Essays for Uneven Terrain is no exception. Her measured and thoughtful writing on depressing political issues is a valuable counterpoint to pessimism about the future.

[Ileana (The Tiniest Book Club) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seit 2016 ist Rebecca Solnit mein Fels in der Brandung gesellschaftlicher Umwälzungen.
Und nicht nur meiner: die hier versammelten Essays sind bereits im Guardian, in der New York Times, der Washington Post und dem Onlinemagazin Literary Hub erschienen.

„Umwege“ bietet Rüstzeug für die Gegenwart und Zukunft und ist eine Feier des Umwegs, also der langen und verschlungenen Wege, die in Veränderung münden.
Unsere jüngste Geschichte bewies immer wieder vor allem eins: sie ist absolut unvorhersehbar gewesen. Die Gegenwart ist ein turbulenter Science-Fiction-Roman, die Zukunft jedoch ist alles andere als festgeschrieben. „Zu wissen, dass man etwas nicht weiß, ist eine wichtige Art von Wissen und sogar von Weisheit, die nie durch Wissensillusion ersetzt werden sollte - was aber häufig geschieht.“

Mit der Hoffnung, die Solnit aus den unvorstellbaren Veränderungen zieht, die vor allem dann sichtbar werden, wenn wir einen längeren Zeitraum betrachten und nicht nur Katastrophe für Katastrophe, gelingt ihr ein mitreißender Aufruf zum Weitermachen. „Folgt man ihnen entweder in Echtzeit oder in der historischen Rückschau, sieht man oft, wie Kräfte von unten entstehen und sich Ideen von den Rändern her in die Mitte bewegen. Doch in der aktuellen Berichterstattung und Debatte werden diese Verläufe und Genealogien zumeist ausgespart - und somit auch in unserer Vorstellung davon, wie sich etwas ergeben hat.“

Solnits Hauptthemen sind Feminismus und Klimakatastrophe und sie verknüpft diese beiden Subjekte immer wieder hervorragend und auf überraschende Weise, leichtfüßig und klug.

In den hier versammelten Texten kommt das Lob des Abschweifens nie zu kurz. Mich persönlich hat auch das Lob der Tantenschaft außerordentlich abgeholt (Auntiefa 😻!), das Solnit am Beispiel der Auntie Sewing Squad deutlich macht, einer Gruppe von Frauen, die der Hilflosigkeit und Ohnmacht zu Beginn der Pandemie mit dem Nähen und Verteilen von selbstgenähten Masken begegnete. Vernetzer*innen im besten Sinne und somit das Gegenteil von Isolationist*innen: „Grundlegend für moderne rechte Weltanschauungen ist die Ansicht, dass nichts mit irgendwas anderem in Verbindung steht, dass Handlungen entweder keine Konsequenzen haben oder Handelnde keine Verantwortung für Konsequenzen tragen, die libertäre Logik, wonach Steuern gesenkt und Waffengesetze gelockert werden müssen, nichts gegen den Klimawandel unternommen werden muss und 2020 die Maßnahmen zur Eindämmung des Coronavirus wütend zurückgewiesen wurden.“

Die rechtliche und wirtschaftliche Unterordnung von Frauen durch Einschränkung reproduktiver Rechte, der auf magische Weise vermeintlich unpolitische Zustand der Mitte und Männlichkeit als radikaler Egoismus: viele Themen verlieren durch Rebecca Solnits Betrachtung an Schrecken und können leichter in einen Kontext gesetzt werden. Die starken, mitfühlenden Essays betonen Zusammenwirken statt Divergenz und treffen besonders durch den Verzicht auf Zynismus einen wunden Punkt, der mich hoffnungsvoller zurücklässt.
„Wohingegen gebrochen zu sein bedeutet, dass man Kontakt sucht, offen, unvollkommen ist und deshalb bereit, das Außen in sein Inneres aufzunehmen. Vielleicht schafft ein Bruch, ein Riss, Raum für die Sehnsucht, über sich hinauszuweisen.“

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Rebecca Solnit's writing. She really makes me think.

This collection looks at how the small actions taken by many, many people over time can spread, grow and create real change to our world's benefit. There are many narratives out there that discourage action, that portray every setback as a monumental failure and reason to give up, that try to convince us that the future is already locked in, and it looks exactly like today—or worse unless we leave it all in the doomsayers hands. Many of the people pushing these stories benefit from the status-quo and don't want things to change, but many of us consuming these stories are simply swamped by stress and negativity, convinced of our own powerlessness. These essays tell a story of otherwise. Collective action does yield results, even if it's by inches and over decades. As the title says, no straight road takes you there.

In this book, in essays both for (mostly gathered under the heading "Visions") and against (in the section called "Revisions"), I've tried to map the circuitous routes that change takes, the byways and backroads by which movements have been built and ideas have advanced, the times when no path forward exists—but, as the poet Antonio Machado famously said, "Walker, there is no path; the path is made by walking." For so many of our destinations, no straight road takes us there. The route is over mountains or through forests and beyond what we know—and it may also be through inconceivable beauty and transformation as well as peril; it may be uncharted, or steep, or take decades or centuries to traverse; we may get there through storytelling, alliance, or the appearance of some unanticipated participants. That's a declaration of difficulty and uncertainty but also of possibility that I offer as encouragement to keep going.

These essays were a balm to read. Solnit reminds us that it's within our power to tell different stories and change our future. She writes about how setbacks aren't necessarily failures, and ideas spread even when specific policies or laws get voted down. She gives examples of communities coming together to solve problems, tackle issues and take on organizations (usually corporations) that want to prevent change. She shows how far we've come, and bucks us up for how much further we have to go.

[Jacqueline Nyathi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Speaking to activists and changemakers in this forthcoming collection, Solnit’s argument is: The way to the place you want to be isn’t always as clearly marked or straightforward as you may think. Nor does it always end up where you had hoped to get. 

Climate change activism. Feminism. Civil rights. In fighting for change in all of these areas, she says, we must celebrate the small wins along the way, and watch for the unexpected consequences of our work. Otherwise, we may miss all the small ways that change is already happening. Civil rights were not won in a day, or even a year; in fact, many of those battles are still being fought now. Democracy is an ongoing struggle; countries advance, and backslide. Issues may be advanced bit by bit, and in directions unplanned.

Lessons are always being learnt along the way about what works, and what doesn’t. We don’t often have the perspective we need while we’re in the middle of things to work out the possible impact of any action. Sometimes we’re building for a future we may never see; the work must still move forward. Martin Luther King, Solnit says, had not planned to give his famous speech that day; I Have A Dream was improvised. This is the meandering that Solnit argues for: that in the process of moving forward and exploring side paths, being open to what happens at each point, we may reach the goal in unexpected ways.

There is no certainty when we’re fighting for what matters, and despair is not an option. She wants us to take the long view, always. We have a tendency to imagine that the future will be like the present, which is like the past—when all of human history is full of unpredictable turns and huge surprises. Authoritarian regimes, Solnit reminds readers, are often toppled incrementally.

Thanks to Haymarket Books and Edelweiss for an early DRC.

[Dipali · Rating 4 out of 5]

** A copy of No Straight Road Takes You There was provided by the publisher and Edelweiss+ in exchange for an honest review **

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: I want to be Rebecca Solnit when I grow up. I will read anything she writes! This collection is exactly what I needed right now: an injection of hope, a balm for my soul, a much-needed reminder to keep fighting for a better world.

[Lauren M · Rating 4 out of 5]

”Nevertheless, we get this hopelessly naive version of centrism, the idea that if we're nicer to the other side there will be no other side, just one big happy family. This inanity is also applied to the questions of belief and fact and principle, with some muddled cocktail of moral relativism and therapists' "everyone's feelings are valid" applied to everything. But the truth is not some compromise halfway between the truth, and the lie, the fact and the delusion, the science and the propaganda. And the ethical is not halfway between white supremacists and human rights activists, rapists and feminists, synagogue massacrists and Jews, xenophobes and immigrants, delusional transphobes and trans people. Who the hell wants unity with Nazis until and unless they stop being Nazis?

Progressives genuinely have something to offer everyone, and we can and must win in the long run by offering it, offering it via better stories and better means to make those stories reach everyone. We actually want to see everyone have a living wage, access to health care, and lives unburdened by medical, student, and housing debt. We want this to be a thriving planet when the babies born this year turn eighty. But the popularly recommended compromise means abandoning and diluting our stories, not fortifying and improving them (and finding ways for them to actually reach the rest of America, rather than having them warped or shut out altogether).”

I love Solnit’s writing as always but this was a little bit of a mixed bag for me, as I suppose collections often are. Some of this is through no fault of the author; current events and situations have changed so fast in the last few months and years that some of these essays feel dated even if they aren’t that old. But the best ones (like “On Not Meeting Nazis Halfway” quoted above) are so good and Solnit’s message is as strong as always that this is still well worth the read.

[Beth Pratt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone should read this book. It inspires, educates and holds the antidote to all our problems. Solnit says “The skills of real-world superheroes are solidarity, strategy, patience, persistence, vision, and the ability to inspire hope in others.” Well, Rebecca Solnit, you most definitely are a superhero then!

[Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Glad to read essays by Solnit that are relevant to the recent years. Especially liked the feminist essays towards the end of this volume.

[Kerry Pickens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rebecca Solnit is my favorite writer and I have read everything she has written except the books on fairytales. She writes about current societal issues and is able to weave together a succinct understanding with many different perspectives. This book discusses the splintering and polarized state of politics, and how compromise and collaboration is the key to the success of our democracy.

[Laura Hoffman Brauman · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Social media has turned too many who use it into would-be pundits and false prophets by encouraging summary judgements and opinions not grounded in facts and expertise. . . . Knowing what we don't know is an important form of knowledge and even wisdom that should never be replaced by the illusion of knowledge -- but often is."

Solnit's most recent essay collection, No Straight Road Takes You There explores contemporary issues including climate change, civil rights, and currently political and social issues. She pulls on threads that connect ideas and concepts, both across moments in current times as well as moments across time. She excels at showing the reader connections and taking an idea. turning it 45 degrees and altering your view. I appreciated both the critical look at issues along with the hopefulness and potential in examples of times we work together. I particularly loved the exploration of the idea of mutual aid not just being about helping each other - it's almost never an equal balance , but the idea of mutual as the idea of shared benefit and being in it together. I also really liked the discussion about it never being "the answer" to an issue, but rather a thousand ideas working together. Solnit always makes me think.

[Paula Martín Villarejo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Primer libro que leo de Solnit; primero de muchos sin duda.

Su redacción es afilada, consciente, esperanzadora a la par que honesta… me costó comprender desde el principio su manera de relacionar conceptos tan desordenada, hasta que me sumergí en su filosofía de pensamiento y comprendí la interconexión de todos los temas sobre los que sabe (que no son pocos).

He encontrado una especie de resonancia clara entre su manera de pensar/escribir y los mensajes que transmite; de alguna forma…acabas abriendo la mente sobre la conectividad de todo y todos entre sí mismos. Perfecto para reflexionar, para concienciarse y conocer un punto de vista de lo más enriquecedor.

[Ayannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first few chapters were a bit dense, but once I found my footing, I appreciated the richness of this collection. It does a great job of exploring topics at the intersection of race, gender and environmental issues. This is a read that offers some hope and optimism at a moment in time when so many things in the world are infuriating and tough.

Thanks to Haymarket for the ARC

[Kira · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have maybe never needed a book more at a certain time in my life than I needed this book now. This is a book about everything that is wrong but more so than that it is a book about how to think and act and shape our future because the future does not yet exist and all we have is what we do today and I am so grateful for people like Rebecca solnit that remind us of deep time horizons and how far we‘ve come and how much progress we’re made

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

As ever, Solnit reminds us that hope is both necessary and always possible. No matter how grim our world, we can make a better one.

[addiethames · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a wonderful book to read on transit when I’m often deep in ponder-mode. Some essays resonated more than others, and Solnit’s weaving of patterns and stories is beautiful and important as always, despite what sometimes felt like an overuse of (not unfounded) generalities. The road is indeed not straight…

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

A powerful collection of essays that serve as an important reminder not to give up hope, to understand that to make important policies take both time and organized effort.

[Melissa Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good friend introduced me to Solnit through this book (and the retreat with Solnit we'll be attending soon). I'll be running, not walking, to read more of her thoughtful work.

[Anne]

Reading some Rebecca Solnit regularly is the book equivalent of 'an apple a day keeps the doctor away'. Like, 'a Solnit essay keeps the grimness at bay'.

...

All 'jokes' aside, her essays really do inspire and inform me as well as provide an antidote to the doomspiral-messaging that most media deploys when they report about the serious issues and crises of our time. Solnit sails her own steady course - she has her principles and views on life in activism and doesn't sway from these. That means that sometimes a few essays read closely one after the other can feel a bit repetitive, which makes sense, since they were written for other publications and then collected here. I didn't find all the essays equally captivating, since I feel like I've read plenty on some topics she discusses, but her style is always enjoyable, as well as her message. I'll share a very Solnitesque quote (the last lines of the book) to close:

"Take care of yourself and remember that taking care of something else is an important part of taking care of yourself, because you are interwoven with the ten trillion things in this single garment of destiny that has been stained and torn, but is still being woven and mended and washed."

[Barbara Joan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The world needs to listen to brilliant intellectuals like Rebecca Solnit and Bill McKibben. Our planet is here to sustain us, not for its commodification. Can we learn to live in harmony with rather than dominion over our most precious treasure before it's too late?

[Nitty · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5 - hope is real and i need to continue hoping

[Annie B · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Beautiful creative non fiction, this was my first exposure to Rebecca Solnit. Themes of climate change, environmental justice, feminism, class struggles, economics, history, music and art, all woven together seamlessly and so thoughtfully. Excited to read more of her writing!

[Radwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A myriad of topics and though most of them written a few years back, it's astonishing how almost all of them are still relevant.

Essays about feminsim, covid, politics in the US, climate activism and change, #metoo movement and harvey weinstein, injustices with all of its different faces. I found myself nodding or stopping reading in frustration and anger.

[Julian Donahue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything Rebecca Solnit writes is transformational, restorative, foundational, calming yet galvanizing.

[Abby Edgecumbe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Solnit joins the (small) list of people who have their heads screwed on right. Oh man, thank god for Rebecca Solnit.