Solnit is an explorer of the most exquisite kind, and a writer of the public road... We follow [her] mind, and what a mind it is, as vast and intriguing as a system of caverns and passageways opening into yet more caverns and passageways... Courageous

- Kurt Caswell, Los Angeles Review of Book

Gripping... Solnit deserves to be widely read

- Sara Wheeler, Observer

This is one of more beautifully written books we've read this year, filled with insight and gut-wrenching phrases. It is simple to read, yet generates complex reactions in the reader. If you enjoy stories and storytelling, this book will expand your understanding of them, and yourself

Huffington Post

An exhilarating form of literary cartography... wonderful

- Jon Day, Financial Times

Solnit is asking us to pause, to consider the stories we tell ourselves about our lives, and to rethink the unstated assumptions of our own interior epics... a book-length primer in the uses of empathy... Rich [and] poignant

- Saul Austerlitz, The National

The book is a lovely one that may bring many readers catharsis or consolation... One loves Solnit for her intelligence and her uprightness... Compelling and unique

Slate

Solnit has a winning prose style... Imaginative sentences are dropped here and there

- Theresa Munoz, Herald

This [book is] about stories - how we use them, the way we tell them. [It] moves between memories from her mother, to more classic fairy tales... you'll want to pen your own by the end

- Lena de Casparis, Company

Complicated, powerful, acutely, even painfully, personal... Solnit is profoundly antagonistic to formulaic production

- Olivia Laing, New Statesman

An astute cultural critic

- Saul Austerlitz, National

Here is Solnit at her most stimulating: pointed (even outraged), grounded in history, observing from the outside

- S. J. Culver, Slate

Solnit fashions an elegant study in empathy through these meandering reflections

- Gabe Habash, Publishers Weekly

The best chapter is on Iceland... her descriptions are wonderful

- Frances Wilson, Telegraph

If you want a very different, lyrical take on how our lives are surrounded and defined by the stories we tell, Solnit's latest book is one of the finest of this or any year

- Andrew Losowsky, Huffington Post

Solnit's words are exquisite; each chapter weaves a fabric of personal experience, literary or historical anecdote and intimate conversation

- Kate Padilla, Spencer Daily Reporter

[It is] at once memoir, literary criticism, and inspirational touchstone, a meandering yet purposeful exploration of how we spin and follow stories, and of how they can lead us on a journey toward self-definition and empathy

- Heller McAlpin, Barnes and Noble Review

Solnit explores love and loss, warmth and coldness, the making of art and the remaking of the self - her distinctive, dense and at times stunning, storytelling hacks a path through the creative landscape

- Alexandra Murphy, We Love This Book

[It is] a work of art with many layers, and readers will be rewarded each time they revisit this wonderful book

- Katie Archer, Yorkshire Post

Solnit is the champion of a style of writing that loops, circles, changes direction... In an era when much of western culture seem unwilling even to acknowledge the political challenges facing us, looming environmental crisis above all, Solnit is a role model

- Susanna Rustin, Guardian

[Solnit] presents us with a fascinating insight into the mind of a writer

- Sarah Tawton, Northern Echo

Pithy, beautifully observed, full of both truth and provocation... Solnit is an extraordinary artist

- Julia Bell, Writers’ Hub

A powerfully insightful and moving memoir... Fittingly for a book about the power of storytelling, Solnit is a terrific practitioner of the art

- Stephanie Cross, The Lady

Tracing the warp and weft of such a work, written with a moving flatness and vagrant wisdom, is a pleasure that frequently carries an almost tactile sensation, so brightly does it sparkle

- David Anderson, Review 31

Brilliant [and] lavish

- Robin Romm, New York Times

An extraordinary piece of work in which the personal and philosophical meet

- Siobhan Kane, Irish Times

While the structure seems elegant, the writing never loses that real-life feeling that everything might fall apart at any moment

- Denise Frame Harlan, Englewood Review of Books

Solnit manages to do what many memoirists aspire to but few accomplish: she turns the personal into the universal

Totally Dublin

Provocative and extremely thought-provoking... it inspires nothing short of awe

Irish Examiner

This is narrative as jazz improve, each refrain exploring a new melody or theme. Yet familiar strains recur again and again. Metaphors abound, and Solnit seems to believe that all of life could be looked at as an allegory to be deciphered

- Craille Maguire Gillies, Guardian

It's so rich, absorbing and inspirational that I keep putting it down to make notes or research a tangent

- Emma Healey, Metro Scotland