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In an age of gaslighting and fake news, it’s important to have someone who isn’t afraid to tell it like it is, and Rebecca Solnit has a talent for it. Whether you agree with everything she writes or not, there’s a lot to be gained from reading her analysis of the many issues facing our country. Despite her brutal honesty, Solnit still manages to foster a sense of hope in her latest collection of essays.
— Jade
“The vision of a better future doesn’t have to deny the crimes and sufferings of the present; it matters because of them.” Solnit covers topics from the gentrification of San Francisco to the horror of the 2016 election. I was kicked in the teeth with every sentence, but it also reverberated in my brain that even though we have miles to go, there are others to help us on the journey.
— KarenaRebecca Solnit is the author of more than twenty books including the international bestseller Men Explain Things to Me. Called "the voice of the resistance" by the New York Times, she has emerged as an essential guide to our times, through her incisive commentary on feminism, violence, ecology, hope, and everything in between.
In this powerful and wide-ranging collection, Solnit turns her attention to battles over meaning, place, language, and belonging at the heart of the defining crises of our time. She explores the way emotions shape political life, electoral politics, police shootings and gentrification, the life of an extraordinary man on death row, the pipeline protest at Standing Rock, and the existential threat posed by climate change.
Changing the world means changing the story, the names, and the language in which we describe it. Calling things by their true names can also cut through the lies that excuse, disguise, avoid, or encourage inaction, indifference, obliviousness in the face of injustice and violence.