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El camino inesperado
La autora de Los hombres me explican cosas y Wanderlust vuelve con un libro lleno de sabiduría y lucidez: una llamada a la reflexión y a una vida alternativa.
«Para Solnit, la esperanza no es una garantía para el mañana, sino el detonador para la acción de hoy».
John Berger
¿Qué puede enseñarnos un violín de trescientos años sobre nuestros bosques? ¿Cuáles son los matices del hielo? ¿Cómo influye en las historias el modo de narrarlas? Las preguntas son el hilo conductor del nuevo libro de Rebecca Solnit: para llegar a nuevos horizontes, nos susurra entre sus páginas, hace falta idear caminos alternativos, tomar la carretera secundaria y mirar el paisaje, perderse en el desvío para así alcanzar, en algún momento, una inesperada forma de ser, pensar y actuar.
Como una hoja de ruta hacia un mundo imaginado, este volumen recoge ensayos tan variados como el pensamiento de su autora, que con su característica agilidad salta de sus observaciones sobre la naturaleza y nuestra relación con ella, al análisis de la actual lucha feminista o las implicaciones modernas de su célebre concepto de mansplaining. Y es que para Solnit el ejercicio de pensar es ante todo una reflexión sobre cómo se construye el propio pensamiento.
La crítica ha dicho:
«La inteligencia y la voz que estamos necesitando para dar savia a los movimientos que intentan mejorar el mundo».
Ricardo Martínez Llorca, Culturamas
«Una esperanzadora y audaz indagación de la resistencia política».
Kirkus Reviews
«En estos tiempos en que la desesperación parece la solución fácil, ningún escritor ha podido sostener la complejidad de conservar la esperanza de una forma tan reflexiva, bella y con tanto matiz como Rebecca Solnit».
Maria Popova
«Una de las críticas culturales más creativas, penetrantes y elocuentes del momento».
Booklist
«Solnit habla con pasión de las posibilidades de cambio y de la importancia de la empatía. Su esperanza no es autocomplaciente, es motor de cambio».
Sílvia Marimon Molas, Diari Ara
«Rebecca Solnit, una dinamitera. Descubrió que las cuerdas vocales servían para hablar. Una ventaja evolutiva a la que sumó otra: la inteligencia».
Javier Ors, La Razón
«Incontestable voz del feminismo, el medioambiente y el arte».
Andrés Seoane, El Cultural
«Para Solnit, la esperanza no es una garantía para el mañana, sino el detonador para la acción de hoy».
John Berger
«El compromiso intelectual de la pensadora estadounidense es de una valentía admirable y una solidez inquebrantable, y además no tiene fronteras ni límites».
Natalio Blanco, Diario16
«Los exquisitos ensayos de Solnit oscilan entre lo político y lo personal, lo intelectual y lo terrenal».
Elle
«Una autoraesencial para comprender el presente y leer el pasado desde una perspectiva reflexiva».
Marita Alonso, 20 Minutos
«Solnit [...] escribe convencida de que la lectura es una pequeña excursión que lleva por senderos secundarios hasta algún arroyo inesperado».
Marina Espasa
«La escritura de Solnit es poesía en prosa y realmente bella, sus pensamientos están siempre [...] llenos de curiosidad y asombro, son la antítesis del dogma. Resulta imposible no dejarse llevar por sus poco convencionales desvíos filosóficos».
The Guardian
«Para Solnit, la esperanza no es una garantía para el mañana, sino el detonador para la acción de hoy».
John Berger
¿Qué puede enseñarnos un violín de trescientos años sobre nuestros bosques? ¿Cuáles son los matices del hielo? ¿Cómo influye en las historias el modo de narrarlas? Las preguntas son el hilo conductor del nuevo libro de Rebecca Solnit: para llegar a nuevos horizontes, nos susurra entre sus páginas, hace falta idear caminos alternativos, tomar la carretera secundaria y mirar el paisaje, perderse en el desvío para así alcanzar, en algún momento, una inesperada forma de ser, pensar y actuar.
Como una hoja de ruta hacia un mundo imaginado, este volumen recoge ensayos tan variados como el pensamiento de su autora, que con su característica agilidad salta de sus observaciones sobre la naturaleza y nuestra relación con ella, al análisis de la actual lucha feminista o las implicaciones modernas de su célebre concepto de mansplaining. Y es que para Solnit el ejercicio de pensar es ante todo una reflexión sobre cómo se construye el propio pensamiento.
La crítica ha dicho:
«La inteligencia y la voz que estamos necesitando para dar savia a los movimientos que intentan mejorar el mundo».
Ricardo Martínez Llorca, Culturamas
«Una esperanzadora y audaz indagación de la resistencia política».
Kirkus Reviews
«En estos tiempos en que la desesperación parece la solución fácil, ningún escritor ha podido sostener la complejidad de conservar la esperanza de una forma tan reflexiva, bella y con tanto matiz como Rebecca Solnit».
Maria Popova
«Una de las críticas culturales más creativas, penetrantes y elocuentes del momento».
Booklist
«Solnit habla con pasión de las posibilidades de cambio y de la importancia de la empatía. Su esperanza no es autocomplaciente, es motor de cambio».
Sílvia Marimon Molas, Diari Ara
«Rebecca Solnit, una dinamitera. Descubrió que las cuerdas vocales servían para hablar. Una ventaja evolutiva a la que sumó otra: la inteligencia».
Javier Ors, La Razón
«Incontestable voz del feminismo, el medioambiente y el arte».
Andrés Seoane, El Cultural
«Para Solnit, la esperanza no es una garantía para el mañana, sino el detonador para la acción de hoy».
John Berger
«El compromiso intelectual de la pensadora estadounidense es de una valentía admirable y una solidez inquebrantable, y además no tiene fronteras ni límites».
Natalio Blanco, Diario16
«Los exquisitos ensayos de Solnit oscilan entre lo político y lo personal, lo intelectual y lo terrenal».
Elle
«Una autoraesencial para comprender el presente y leer el pasado desde una perspectiva reflexiva».
Marita Alonso, 20 Minutos
«Solnit [...] escribe convencida de que la lectura es una pequeña excursión que lleva por senderos secundarios hasta algún arroyo inesperado».
Marina Espasa
«La escritura de Solnit es poesía en prosa y realmente bella, sus pensamientos están siempre [...] llenos de curiosidad y asombro, son la antítesis del dogma. Resulta imposible no dejarse llevar por sus poco convencionales desvíos filosóficos».
The Guardian
224 pages, Paperback
First published May 13, 2025
426 people are currently reading
7600 people want to read
About the author
Rebecca Solnit
117 books7,993 followersWriter, 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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 194 reviews
May 17, 2025
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
March 18, 2025
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.
June 22, 2025
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 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.
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.
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.
June 18, 2025
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.“
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.“
December 3, 2024
** 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.
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.
August 13, 2025
”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.
November 2, 2025
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.
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.
June 1, 2025
Glad to read essays by Solnit that are relevant to the recent years. Especially liked the feminist essays towards the end of this volume.
May 12, 2025
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.
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.
December 8, 2024
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.
July 24, 2025
"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.
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.
November 30, 2025
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.
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.
May 28, 2025
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
Thanks to Haymarket for the ARC
August 3, 2025
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
November 27, 2025
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.
December 6, 2025
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…
May 27, 2025
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.
Read
August 15, 2025Reading 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."
...
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."
June 25, 2025
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.
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.
June 20, 2025
Everything Rebecca Solnit writes is transformational, restorative, foundational, calming yet galvanizing.
July 8, 2025
Solnit joins the (small) list of people who have their heads screwed on right. Oh man, thank god for Rebecca Solnit.
Read
July 15, 2025Despite it being a bit too positive for me, I really like the way Solnit thinks and writes. She tackles subjects that weigh on me as well and I really appreciate her thoughts and conclusions.
It does unfortunately have the bias of early 2020 and first years of the pandemic. Reading it now, knowing how everyone moved on and left vulnerable and disabled behind for the comforts of going back to 2019 puts those essays in perspective as I believe Solnit moved on just like almost everyone else. Things written at that time often turn quite sour when reading now and knowing the current science on the health damage being continuously done for the sake of forgetting it has ever happened. And so do Solnit’s essays on this particular subject.
There’s also a part that bothered me about mining rare minerals (cobalt) and how because it’s not as bad as mining coal it is therefore fine. And a sentence of a slight praise for Tesla for not using certain rare mineral in batteries. That really did not age well.
Despite all the negatives, I did get a lot out of reading it and it did remind me again that efforts of mutual aid and continued fight for the better world (or at least for my community) are worth it and doing that in my daily life is fighting the good fight.
What will stay with me the most is what she repeated in Credo “The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving”. That’s the driving point of this book and it’s a really strong and important one, despite how pessimistic my outlook is.
It does unfortunately have the bias of early 2020 and first years of the pandemic. Reading it now, knowing how everyone moved on and left vulnerable and disabled behind for the comforts of going back to 2019 puts those essays in perspective as I believe Solnit moved on just like almost everyone else. Things written at that time often turn quite sour when reading now and knowing the current science on the health damage being continuously done for the sake of forgetting it has ever happened. And so do Solnit’s essays on this particular subject.
There’s also a part that bothered me about mining rare minerals (cobalt) and how because it’s not as bad as mining coal it is therefore fine. And a sentence of a slight praise for Tesla for not using certain rare mineral in batteries. That really did not age well.
Despite all the negatives, I did get a lot out of reading it and it did remind me again that efforts of mutual aid and continued fight for the better world (or at least for my community) are worth it and doing that in my daily life is fighting the good fight.
What will stay with me the most is what she repeated in Credo “The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving”. That’s the driving point of this book and it’s a really strong and important one, despite how pessimistic my outlook is.
June 3, 2025
„Wie man die Welt sieht, hängt von dem ab, was man in ihr tun kann.“
Rebecca Solnit thematisiert in ihrem Buch „Umwege“, wie wir Menschen durch unser Handeln Gegenwart und Zukunft gestalten können. Sie beschäftigt sich mit aktuellen Fragen und Thematiken wie Klimawandel, Bedrohung der Demokratie, Feminismus. Wissenschaft, Popkultur und Studien durchziehen die unterschiedlichen Essays.
Dieses Buch ist das erste von Rebecca Solnit, dass ich von ihr lese. Leider bin ich vorher noch nie dazu gekommen, ich habe aber schon viel Gutes über sie gehört. Das Buch bzw. die darin enthaltenen Essays thematisieren wichtige Schwerpunkte, die für die Gesellschaft hohe Relevanz haben. Das hat mir gut gefallen und ich habe mir auch viele Stellen während dem Lesen markiert.
Es ist aber meiner Meinung nach schon anspruchsvollere Lektüre. Ich kam mir manchmal nicht qualifiziert genug dafür vor, das ist aber natürlich nur ein subjektives Gefühl.
4/5 Sterne
Rebecca Solnit thematisiert in ihrem Buch „Umwege“, wie wir Menschen durch unser Handeln Gegenwart und Zukunft gestalten können. Sie beschäftigt sich mit aktuellen Fragen und Thematiken wie Klimawandel, Bedrohung der Demokratie, Feminismus. Wissenschaft, Popkultur und Studien durchziehen die unterschiedlichen Essays.
Dieses Buch ist das erste von Rebecca Solnit, dass ich von ihr lese. Leider bin ich vorher noch nie dazu gekommen, ich habe aber schon viel Gutes über sie gehört. Das Buch bzw. die darin enthaltenen Essays thematisieren wichtige Schwerpunkte, die für die Gesellschaft hohe Relevanz haben. Das hat mir gut gefallen und ich habe mir auch viele Stellen während dem Lesen markiert.
Es ist aber meiner Meinung nach schon anspruchsvollere Lektüre. Ich kam mir manchmal nicht qualifiziert genug dafür vor, das ist aber natürlich nur ein subjektives Gefühl.
4/5 Sterne
January 8, 2025
Rebecca Solnit has a sharp mind and I enjoy reading what she has to say about the world as it is at any given moment—this collection of essays was no exception. What I took most from the pages of No Straight Road Takes You There was a reminder that when things feel especially bleak (such as now, presumably), to zoom out and remember that change does happen. Shocking change that would’ve once never seemed possible. In fact, change is our only constant. Even when it seems that nothing could ever go right again, zoom out. That’s a comforting thought to take into the new year.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a galley in exchange for my honest review.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a galley in exchange for my honest review.
August 9, 2025
Solnit deserves credit for stepping into the maelstrom of the US' annihilation, but we need more than hope right now. These essays are topical without systemic analysis.
August 24, 2025
On my recent weeklong solo trip to Indiana, I failed to bring enough reading material to last. While in Bloomington, where I spent the bulk of my time, I shopped Caveat Emptor, the Book Corner, Morganstern’s, and Half-Price Books. I was hungry for something, but I didn’t know what. I failed to walk away with anything, but I returned to Morganstern’s the next day to try again. I was looking for something devastating. Not about something devastating, but something that would devastate. I could have asked for recommendations, but didn’t. In the end, I pulled a one-eighty, choosing Rebecca Solnit’s latest collection of essays, No Straight Road Takes You There. Sometimes there’s what you want, and sometimes there’s what you need. I might have wanted devastation, but what I needed was hope.
Despite my utter appreciation for Solnit’s writing—I love the divergent and myriad threads she weaves together and the nonlinear routes she navigates along the way—I have, nevertheless, been hit-and-miss with her. A Field Guide to Getting Lost was a five-star revelation, but I was disappointed in both Wanderlust and Hope in the Dark. The former because, in the end, I wanted to go for a hike more than I wanted to read about how and why people came to walk for pleasure rather than by necessity. The latter because it felt too tailored for front-line activists, who often need reminding that the causes they fight for have arcs far longer than the present moment. No Straight Road Takes You There is precisely for someone like me: one who cares deeply, and aligns highly, with Solnit and the causes she champions, but is not necessarily a front-line activist with skin in the game.
Comprised of 20 essays in just 160 pages, No Straight Road Takes You There is as circuitous in its journey—it begins with an essay about a violin made in 1721 and ends with one about a man exonerated and released from prison after 42 years—as it is slight in its depth. That is, at roughly eight smallish pages per essay, Solnit lacks the space to stretch her legs and go “out there.” And though it wasn’t the case for all of them, while they didn’t necessarily feel incomplete, many often left me wanting more, as if I was offered an appetizer when what I wanted was an entrée. I felt much the same way about Mary Beard’s Women and Power: A Manifesto, in which it felt like more questions were asked than answers given. Still, there are several remarkable and moving pieces within, and Solnit’s essay “On Not Meeting Nazis Halfway,” in particular, is worth the price of admission alone.
Despite my utter appreciation for Solnit’s writing—I love the divergent and myriad threads she weaves together and the nonlinear routes she navigates along the way—I have, nevertheless, been hit-and-miss with her. A Field Guide to Getting Lost was a five-star revelation, but I was disappointed in both Wanderlust and Hope in the Dark. The former because, in the end, I wanted to go for a hike more than I wanted to read about how and why people came to walk for pleasure rather than by necessity. The latter because it felt too tailored for front-line activists, who often need reminding that the causes they fight for have arcs far longer than the present moment. No Straight Road Takes You There is precisely for someone like me: one who cares deeply, and aligns highly, with Solnit and the causes she champions, but is not necessarily a front-line activist with skin in the game.
Comprised of 20 essays in just 160 pages, No Straight Road Takes You There is as circuitous in its journey—it begins with an essay about a violin made in 1721 and ends with one about a man exonerated and released from prison after 42 years—as it is slight in its depth. That is, at roughly eight smallish pages per essay, Solnit lacks the space to stretch her legs and go “out there.” And though it wasn’t the case for all of them, while they didn’t necessarily feel incomplete, many often left me wanting more, as if I was offered an appetizer when what I wanted was an entrée. I felt much the same way about Mary Beard’s Women and Power: A Manifesto, in which it felt like more questions were asked than answers given. Still, there are several remarkable and moving pieces within, and Solnit’s essay “On Not Meeting Nazis Halfway,” in particular, is worth the price of admission alone.
June 21, 2025
There are some really great essays in here, and some ones I thought were only okay.
Favorites:
- Despair is a Luxury
- On Not Meeting Nazis Halfway
- In the Shadow of Silicon Valley
- Changing the Climate Story
Lots of good stuff in here about paying attention to the good that’s being done in the world and taking the long view on progress (comparing the world now to how it was 10, 20, 30 years ago, not just how it was 4-5 years ago). Solnit cites two quotes I like to this point: “Walker, there is no path; the path is made by walking” (Antonio Machado, a Spanish poet), and “No fate but what we make,” (this one is from Terminator 2, but the point still stands I guess).
Still, it’s hard when many of the examples that Solnit cites to make these points are items that the Trump administration is actively targeting now, after the book was published. But the message still stands. Wishing you all well.
Favorites:
- Despair is a Luxury
- On Not Meeting Nazis Halfway
- In the Shadow of Silicon Valley
- Changing the Climate Story
Lots of good stuff in here about paying attention to the good that’s being done in the world and taking the long view on progress (comparing the world now to how it was 10, 20, 30 years ago, not just how it was 4-5 years ago). Solnit cites two quotes I like to this point: “Walker, there is no path; the path is made by walking” (Antonio Machado, a Spanish poet), and “No fate but what we make,” (this one is from Terminator 2, but the point still stands I guess).
Still, it’s hard when many of the examples that Solnit cites to make these points are items that the Trump administration is actively targeting now, after the book was published. But the message still stands. Wishing you all well.
June 1, 2025
My favourite essay was "On Not Meeting Nazis Halfway," where Solnit posits that the centerist who says we just need to listen to the other side has a naivete that we're really all one big happy family. She says there's an expectation that the left just needs to be nicer and more compassionate to the right, whereas the right has no interest in doing that. She compares the Democrats to the woman in the relationship, who is expected to adapt based on what the Republicans are doing.
I don't completely ascribe to this view, but that's not really why I read essay collections by thoughtful writers like Solnit. The last-added instalment, Credo - written in November 2024 - also offers some very soothing words for people unhappy about the U.S. election.
I don't completely ascribe to this view, but that's not really why I read essay collections by thoughtful writers like Solnit. The last-added instalment, Credo - written in November 2024 - also offers some very soothing words for people unhappy about the U.S. election.
September 15, 2025
In her opener to this book, Rebecca Solnit writes, "Knowing 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." More people need to understand this.
What follows is a brilliant story, told through science, theory, personal narrative, reflection, and history, that would have convinced me (if I didn't already believe it) of the essential truth that everything is connected and by changing one thing, we can (and must) change many.
This was my first Solnit experience, but it will not be my last. I wish I had read one chapter per day, as I planned, but I did rush to finish it because of a GR challenge because I cannot resist an external reward, even if it's just a digital bookmark.
What follows is a brilliant story, told through science, theory, personal narrative, reflection, and history, that would have convinced me (if I didn't already believe it) of the essential truth that everything is connected and by changing one thing, we can (and must) change many.
This was my first Solnit experience, but it will not be my last. I wish I had read one chapter per day, as I planned, but I did rush to finish it because of a GR challenge because I cannot resist an external reward, even if it's just a digital bookmark.
May 31, 2025
I needed to read this. It was the perfect book for the present moment, delivering a hopeful outlook and inspiring perspectives on contemporary political and cultural movements. Rebecca Solnit never misses for me and her writing is expansive and generous, challenging us to look beyond conventional approaches and do the seemingly simple but challenging task of actively imagining and hoping for a better world and future. I especially enjoyed “In Praise of the Meander,” Insurrectionary Aunthood,” and “Despair is a Luxury.” ❤️
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