The Found and the Lost: The Collected Novellas of Ursula K. Le Guin

by Ursula K. Le Guin

[This book] represents the first time that all of Le Guin novellas have been collected in a single volume. Featuring thirteen unforgettable stories, this literary treasure is easily one of the most anticipated collections of the year. In addition to more than 800 pages of extraordinary storytelling, [this book] also includes an introduction from the legendary author.

• ISBN10: 1481451405
• ISBN13: 9781481451406
• Publish Date: 7 November 2017 (first published 18 October 2016)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 20 December 2023
• Imprint: Gallery / Saga Press
• Edition: Reprint ed.
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 832
• Language: English

Reviews

[nannah]

This is, by far, the best book/collection of works I’ve read in the last couple of years, if not longer. Maybe for a very, very long time, to be honest. I read and liked the Earthsea books okay enough as a kid, and I’m furious it’s taken me this long to reconnect with Ursula K. Le Guin’s works.

Content Warnings:
(Unfortunately I forgot to take note of warnings for each individual novella)
- ableism (in-book as well as a lot of [unintentional?] casual ableism in general)
- ableist slurs
- rape
- victim blaming
child abuse
- CSA
- slavery
- pedophilia
- incest

Representation:
(Again … I apologize)
- many protagonists have darker skin (or are the world’s oppressed race[s])
- a few protagonists are disabled

One of these days I’ll come back here and edit this review to go work by work, because I fully intend to reread this (and take notes).

This collection is mind blowing in many ways. Firstly, it’s truly massive, larger than most dictionaries, and contains thirteen novellas: every novella Ursula K. Le Guin has written. Secondly, its concepts are not only well written but so ahead of their time that many stories published today are still lightyears behind these (the oldest novella was published in 1972 and the newest in 2002, although I can’t find publishing dates for all of them). Thirdly, it’s one of those rare collections in which every single work is fantastic. There are no duds (the first novella has inaccurate information about autism considered accurate when the work was written that makes me cringe, but it's my only critique).

I honestly have nothing more to say right now.
I’m just very glad to have once again found a connection with Ursula K. Le Guin … I can’t wait to read and reread her other works.

[jamiereadthis]

Le Guin is the master of the novella. Each of these stories contains a universe; even the stories meant to expand the worlds she’s created in her Hainish and Earthsea cycles, they feel complete unto themselves.

And the shape of each story— it’s her carrier bag theory of fiction in practice. A different way of thinking about narrative. And far beyond that— a different way of thinking about the world we live in, what we do within it, how we frame our lives.

I’m in awe.

---

Previously:

I’m on page 150 and could stop the book now and give it five stars. I won’t, 650 pages to go, but here are the lines I wrote down from “Hernes”:

It’s queer how the words change and change the world.

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I needed to walk, down on the beach, get the sky over me.

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Elk. Nine of them going along, easy in their majesty, carrying their crowns.

----

She misses him but she doesn’t really miss him, she doesn’t need him. She is complete.

----

What can you do to evil but refuse it? Not pretend it isn’t there, but look at it, and know it, and refuse it.

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He’d fly along the beach like a little thistle seed.

----

I don’t know what I want; I don’t know that I want anything. Only to know some soul better. It’s like there’s a country in me where I can’t go. And other people have that country in them, but I don’t know how to find it.

----

Placid as a goldfish. But there are countries in her. She is a mystery.

----

Pure romance: to love what you can never touch. And was the love he thanked me for, his pure delight, ever more than that— a bubble without substance, that a touch would break?