RIP Ursula Le Guin

Such brilliant titles! How can you not want to read a book called The Lathe of Heaven, or The Left Hand of Darkness?

The stylistic and intellectual brilliance of her writing was illuminated by a sort of radiant magnanimity – and a wonderfully eccentric, vinegary wit. I think I feel an urge coming on to re-read a dozen or so of the short stories, right now.

A favorite line, in so far as memory can reconstruct it:

“Other people’s lives are never simple. They only look simple from a distance – the way a planet looks smooth, from orbit.”