I can see why some people like this book, but I found it to be an excruciating read. I liked her essay on genre quite a bit, and would definitely recommend. However, I would only recommend the whole book if you’re a very big fan of Ursula’s work AND the other works she frequently discusses.

I always enjoy Ursula's work about books and writing. It's like learning from a true master of the craft.

Dnf because I got tired of the book reviews. I loved the essays and talks, and really wish the book was 3/4 those 1/4 reviews, versus the inverse it actually is. The essays gave my brain something to chew on and I will be thinking about them for while

I read much, but not all, of this book: all of the "Talks, Essays, and Occasional Pieces," the "Journal of a Writer's Week," and selected book introductions/book reviews--those for books that I have read, am interested in reading, or just caught my eye after the first couple of paragraphs. One or two of the essays were things I had already read (perhaps in slightly different form) on Le Guin's blog.

I thought the quality of these pieces was mixed, but there were a number that I did especially like. Certainly "Disappearing Grandmothers" (2011) is the one that stayed most clearly with me. It's an essay about the ways in which women's writing is marginalized and excluded from "the canon." It's a good essay overall, but the main reason it stayed with me was her description of how Wallace Stegner stole, without attribution, the content of Mary Foote's autobiography "A Victorian Gentlewoman in the Far West" for his novel "Angle of Repose" (including the novel's title itself!). The only quasi-acknowledgement given by Stegner is even more of an insult, in that he thanks Foote's descendants "for the loan of their grandmother" (without further explanation). This bummed me out because I like "Angle of Repose" pretty well, but have now totally revised my view of it and Stegner for the worse.

The essay "What It Was Like" (2004) was also a stand-out--it's a speech Le Guin gave to NARAL about her own experience of getting an abortion well before Roe v. Wade, which I didn't realize had happened. She makes an eloquent argument about how it was that abortion that made possible the lives of her (multiple) subsequent children, which she feels sure she would not have had if she had been forced to bear the first child.

Among the book introductions/reviews I read, the ones where Le Guin made me want to read the book (or increased my desire to do so) were: "Solaris" (Stanislaw Lem), "Roadside Picnic" (Arkady and Boris Strugatsky), and "Dreamsnake" (Vonda McIntyre).

Words Are My Matter: Writings on Life and Books by Ursula K. Le Guin is a mix of essays, book reviews, and journaling about a writers retreat. Le Guin offers some interesting points of view throughout Words Are My Matter. I was a bit hesitant about the book reviews, but she handled them more like essays than the kind of reviews typically seen on book websites. Words Are My Matter was engaging, but a few parts were less appealing than others. I enjoyed the essays more than the reviews. The journal entries about the writers retreat sparked my curiosity about the retreat enough that I researched it. Words Are My Matter managed to both feel disjointed and cohesive with the various sections compiled as they are, but overall was a satisfying read.