(I guess I'm letting out all my bottled-up words today...)A collection of essays on feminist topics. I've been meaning to read some Solnit ever since everyone was reading her book Hope in the Dark during the first Trump administration. I randomly was in need of an ebook to read, and this was the book of Solnit's available through my library, so here we are.
On one hand, I did not find this a challenging read. Most of what Solnit had to say, I've encountered in some form or another before, and most of these essays are surface-level examinations of their topics. OTOH, there's something to be said for having thoughts laid out in a coherent essay format when one has previously only encountered them via social media, haphazardly and in fragments. And even though the collection had a strong feminism 101 feeling for me, I did highlight a bunch of quotes, which I am putting below under a cut, mostly for my own use. So, clearly I got some value out of the book!
IMO, by far the strongest essay is the one where she gets into specifics, and that's the final essay, "Giantess," about a 1950s film called Giant starring Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson. I feel like I might vaguely have heard of this movie, and although it doesn't sound like my usual jam genre-wise, the politics sound progressive even today, so I'm tempted just from a point of historical interest.
( quotes )