Monday, July 13, 2009

12. The Left Hand of Darkness

by Ursula LeGuin (283 pp.)

In the process of writing up the previous book I found out that the New Yorker book club is reading The Left Hand Of Darkness this month in honor of its 40th year since publication. I only read this book once and I think it was about twenty years ago. It's fantastic. I've been having a lot of trouble getting into books lately and this is a brainy read but I could hardly put it down. It's about an envoy from a group of planets who travels to this technologically undeveloped world to try to bring them into their group. Things don't go easily for him. The planet is cold such that the cold is like another character in the story. Plus there are themes of gender, power, friendship. Highly recommended.

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