Kris's Reviews > Always Coming Home

Le Guin’s imagination is a powerful force, and this book is like nothing I’ve read before. How she conjured up a fully fleshed-out society, from their rituals and language to their recipes and folk songs (with recordings!), absolutely astounds me. In 500 pages she renders a depiction that goes far beyond the stories and (fictional) facts on the page. She studies the stories this world presents her with, but they are merely the rich outer layer of a whole history that overlaps with our own history, and through her telling we can see something of ourselves. I’m sure I will read this book again and again, in parts and out of order now that I’ve gone through the whole, so that I can unhurriedly dig through the layers Le Guin has crafted for us. Heya.