No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters

　　Ursula K. Le Guin on the absurdity of denying your age: "If I'm ninety and believe I'm forty-five, I'm headed for a very bad time trying to get out of the bathtub."

　　On cultural perceptions of fantasy: "The direction of escape is toward freedom. So what is 'escapism' an accusation of?"

　　On breakfast: "Eating an egg from the shell takes not only practice, but resolution, even courage, possibly willingness to commit crime."

　　Ursula K. Le Guin has taken readers to imaginary worlds for decades. Now she's in the last great frontier of life, old age, and exploring new literary territory: the blog, a forum where her voice--sharp, witty, as compassionate as it is critical--shines. No Time to Spare collects the best of Ursula's online writing, presenting perfectly crystallized dispatches on what matters to her now, her concerns with this world, and her unceasing wonder at it: "How rich we are in knowledge, and in all that lies around us yet to learn. Billionaires, all of us."

作者簡介

娥蘇拉．勒瑰恩（Ursula K. Le Guin）

　　美國重要奇幻科幻、女性主義文學作家，1929年 生。著有長篇小說20餘部、短篇小說集10本、詩集7本、評論集4本、童書10餘本；並編纂文選與從事翻譯，包括將老子《道德經》譯成英文。曾獲美國國家 書卷獎、號角書獎、紐伯瑞獎、世界奇幻獎、軌跡獎、星雲獎、雨果獎、小詹姆斯．提普翠獎、卡夫卡獎、普須卡獎……等，以及SFWA大師、洛杉磯時報 Robert Kirsch終生成就獎等榮譽。

　　她的奇幻成長小說系列「地海六部曲」與「魔戒」、「納尼亞傳說」並列奇幻經典，科幻小 說《黑暗的左手》、《一無所有》等也是科幻迷心目中永遠的經典。小說探討的議題，從自我成長與認同，到社會制度探討與性別問題，都鞭辟入裡，在優美恬澹的 敘事風格中予人寬廣深沈的省思空間。西洋文學評論家哈洛．卜倫將她列為美國經典作家之列，日本作家村上春樹也是她的書迷。

　　Ursula K. Le Guin has published twenty-one novels, eleven volumes of short stories, four collections of essays, twelve books for children, six volumes of poetry and four of translation, and has received the Hugo, Nebula, Endeavor, Locus, Tiptree, Sturgeon, PEN-Malamud, and National Book Award and the Pushcart and Janet Heidinger Kafka prizes, among others.

　　In recent years she has received lifetime achievement awards from World Fantasy Awards, Los Angeles Times, Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, and Willamette Writers, as well as the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Grand Master Award and the Library of Congress Living Legends award. Le Guin was the recipient of the Association for Library Service to Children s May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award and the Margaret Edwards Award.

　　Her recent publications include the novel Lavinia, Words Are My Matter, an essay collection, and Finding My Elegy, New and Selected Poems. She lives in Portland, Oregon, and her website is UrsulaKLeGuin.com.