No Straight Road Takes You There

by Rebecca Solnit (2025)

This collection of essays written from 2020 to November 5, 2024 addresses issues including the public health response to COVID, climate change, women rights and civil rights broadly. On these specific issues, Solnit’s arguments are often predictable, and since the changed political landscape with last fall’s election her polemics feel out of date, even quaint. But some of the essays also address broader themes of living with uncertainty, persevering in the face of defeat, the value of history in understanding culture and politics, and how to draw on historical knowledge in reacting to the current environment. Solnit treats these themes with insight and her approach is inspiring in a way that is every bit as appropriate today as when they were written.

I read a hard copy of this book.