I’ve read and enjoyed a couple of Ursula K. Le Guin’s novels, felt intrigued to know more about the author and thought: what better way than picking up a collection of her personal essays that were originally written as blog posts? Unfortunately, although I feel like I know her better now, No Time to Spare was not a positive reading experience. 

Most of the essays are simply boring. For instance, even though I’m 100% a cat person, countless entries about the daily life of Le Guin’s pet are just not interesting. Still, I can deal with dull, but there’s one essay that made cringe like crazy. It’s making fun of vegetarians/vegans by saying how we still don’t know what plants may feel and that if we really want to minimize suffering, we shouldn’t eat anything at all. Things like this can be said jokingly, yet I didn’t find the execution to be in good taste. Instead, I couldn’t help but start finding Le Guin slightly obnoxious as her tone is quite mean. I agree that there’s much we don’t know about plants but even if they were sentient, vegetarian/vegan diets require much less plants as most crops are grown for animal feed. I also found the mentions of population growth as the biggest environmental issue problematic - blaming developing countries for the overuse of resources has a long and racist history, one that distracts us from unsustainable Western lifestyles. On the other hand, Le Guin makes important points criticizing our economic system that’s based on continuous growth. 

I skimmed through the later essays (there’s one that’s all about how she likes to eat her eggs) and I don’t think I missed anything other that further frustration by doing that. I really didn’t expect to not agree with Le Guin’s views and to find her, well, tedious. Interestingly, her novels are anything but, so I might still read them occasionally – who knows.